


Fallout

by Fargone5



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, BAMF Michelle Jones, F/M, Hiking, I'll be honest I can't tag, I'll figure it out, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Peter Parker, Slow Burn, Survival, This could turn into a Mad Max Au so just warning ya, a lot of swearing, but would that be a bad thing, like really, maybe some other stuff i can't think of, oh and there's violence i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2019-08-03 06:59:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16321367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fargone5/pseuds/Fargone5
Summary: After a sudden nuclear war tosses the entire world into a chaos, a devastated Earth is left in its wake. The Avengers have worked tirelessly to salvage the fractured remnants of civilization, setting up multiple outposts in hopes of restoring order, and to shelter the few that remain.Enter Michelle "MJ" Jones, a teenage survivor that has endured the crisis on her own. Constantly avoiding bandits and other dangers, she's convinced she'll die eventually in The Wasteland. But when she runs into an old friend who claims to be an "Avenger scout", Michelle thinks she might survive after all, especially when he says that a safe zone is within reach. What follows is an adventurous yet dangerous road trip that might end up with more feelings than either of them bargained for.





	1. Brave New World

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story ever on this site, so yeah, let's do this thingy.

The world had gone to shit.

In about as spectacularly as you'd expect in a world full of super-powered idiots, even if it wasn't their fault.

Michelle Jones had seen it all unfold. Countries reaching their breaking point with each other, where words were no longer enough to keep the peace and the Avengers efforts proving useless in their fight for harmony. King T'Challa has worked to keep things civil between his neighbors, but as soon as it became clear that nothing could quell the rage they felt toward one another, he threw up the shield that surrounded his kingdom and disappeared.

And then the bombs dropped.

It had been a firestorm all over the Earth. A country fired nuclear missiles at America, and in turn, America fired right back. The Avengers sprang into action, flying to different countries to help in any way they could.

As for the U.S., every major city became enveloped in flames, buildings crashing and people fleeing. Tony Stark, somehow anticipating this outcome, had built several bunkers for people to take shelter in. Using every sentry suit in his arsenal, he herded as many as he could in each city into their prospective bunkers. He had saved many lives, including Michelle's parents, so she hoped.

The strike had happened while Michelle had been staying in a small town just outside San Fransisco with her grandparents. One of the first bombs had been on New York City, which had come as no surprise. She had been on her phone but had dropped it when the news started showing footage of New York City being evacuated to a Stark bunker, and she watched on as the people were directed by the billionaire's sentries. Her phone vibrated with a text from the floor, but she didn't look to see who it was. Her eyes were glued to the TV as she watched swarms of people disappear into the mouth of the bunker to be kept safe. Even Spider-Man was there, helping with the evacuations and rounding up the stragglers.

Then, the bomb hit, and everything went static. Michelle gasped as the screen went dark. Her grandmother came into the room and said they were leaving. Washington D.C had been struck and Stark sentries had come into their small Ohio town to lead them to the nearest bunker.

Quickly packing a backpack full of things within reach, Michelle left with her grandparents with a cluster of other townsfolk. The bunker was close by, and as they joined the line of people waiting to be let in, Michelle finally checked the text that had come to her phone.

Parker:  
Stay safe MJ

It was from Peter Parker, one of the two friends she had at Midtown Tech. The Tony Stark intern that had puppy dog eyes and could quote every Star Wars movie by heart. He had grabbed her attention at the beginning of sophomore year and refused to let it go. Ned Leeds, her other best friend, had been begging Michelle to get together with Peter, claiming they were "perfect" for each other. But that was a road Michelle didn't dare travel down. She didn't want to jeopardize her friendship with Peter, even if she didn't even feel that way about him. She had never had a friend before, and for now, that's all she wanted with him.

Her eyes read over Peter's text for a minute before she realized that she had left something vitally important at the house.

"I'll be right back," Michelle said quickly to her grandparents. Before her grandmother could protest, Michelle was gone, breaking into a run back to the house. She heard mumbles of confusion from the other people in line, but she didn't pay any attention to them.

Michelle hightailed it all the way back to her house and crashed through the door. Sprinting upstairs, she barged into her room and frantically started searching through her drawers. When she found what she was looking for, a sound from outside made her freeze. It was a nearby siren. Not a regular police siren, but a shrill warning one. It was so loud the whole state could probably hear it.

And it could only mean one thing.

Knowing she had no time to get back to the bunker, she flew down the stairs and into the basement. She threw the heavy cellar door closed and dove into the furthest corner, clutching her possession to her chest and praying to whatever deity might be watching from above. She was going to die most likely. Who could survive a nuclear blast?

It seemed like such a certainty that she would die in that basement. But luckily, it wasn't a nuclear bomb. It was just a napalm strike carried out by an entire airplane fleet that decimated the entire town, as well as the rest of the west coast. The nukes were saved for the more populated cities, like New York City and Washington D.C. All the rest of the United States took on napalm or daisy cutters, causing just as much damage without so much range.

Michelle had considered herself lucky that she survived, but was she really? She recalled that event like it had happened yesterday, but now, three years afterward, she often wondered if it would have been better that she had just died. Or gone in the bunker with her grandparents, which was now buried so far beneath the surface that there was no getting to it.

Being on your own for three years can teach you things, Michelle learned. Like never stay in the same place for too long, open spaces aren't your friend, the major cities were highly radioactive and you'd die if you went near them, and absolutely everybody you met couldn't be trusted. Whatever survivors she had run into had turned to banditry and looting, forming gangs to overtake ruined towns to use as hideouts. They would go out and hunt, both for animals and people. They were fond of taking prisoners and killing them in cruel ways. Michelle knew how to hide from them when they came sniffing around.

She had gotten the hang of living on her own fairly quickly. Weirdly, survival fit her well. She always knew that if a post-apocalyptic situation ever happened, she'd excel. Michelle was somewhat of a loner, even back in high school. Her family had tried to tempt her to be more outgoing, but it just wasn't in her nature. She liked being alone, because when it came down to it, she decided she couldn't trust anyone but herself.

Now, in the crisp month that she pinned as October, Michelle was getting ready to leave her most recent hideout. It was an old treehouse in the backyard of a suburban home. She had looted the house for whatever essentials were inside, and found some canned food and a six pack of one-liter water bottles that were stowed away in the cellar. Her heavy black backpack she now toted around proved useful in carrying a variety of different things, from food to supplies to the machete she had strapped to the side. She even had a glock in one of the outer sleeves as well as a bullet pocket. It was only in desperate situations where she ever used that. Her machete was her ideal weapon of defense.

If she was being perfectly honest, Michelle had no idea where she was. Three years of walking without any real destination really screwed up her directional compass. Sometimes she'd get a town name on the side of a building, and it wasn't until the year before that she had gotten out of California, entering Oregon. From what she had explored of the state, its mountains and forests were relatively untouched, even though all the houses she came across were abandoned and there was absolutely no one around.

Michelle pulled on her a flannel and her leather jacket, as well as her worn hiking boots. She tightly rolled up her sleeping bag and stuffed it as far as she could into her backpack, next to her first aid kit. Finally, she reached over for the thing that landed her in all this trouble, the thing she'd gone back for and positively fucked up her life.

It was a set of pictures from a photo booth of her, Peter and Ned. The two boys had forced her into it when they had gone to the movies to watch the new Star Wars movie. In the pictures, she was smiling and slightly annoyed, but Peter and Ned's grins made her heart ache. Them having fun had made her have fun. The photos were the only pictures she had of her two best friends, and she couldn't have left them behind. Now, all because of her sentiment, she was on her own. Michelle couldn't help but feel slightly mad at herself whenever she looked at them. She just had to go and get a little two attached to those idiots, and the forces of the universe had punished her for it.

The last photo was the most special though, at least to her. It was just her and Peter in the booth, after they laughingly pushed Ned out. She had bursted out in a fit of giggles and Peter was looking at her and laughing, a vibrant shine in his brown eyes. They had made eye contact for a split second, smiles plastered on their faces, and the camera snapped to capture that split second. They both looked so happy. Michelle could honestly say she hadn't made that face in a very long time, and probably wouldn't ever again.

A tear started to form in one of her eyes and Michelle quickly wiped it away. It was pointless being sad about people that were most likely dead. Ned was dead. Her parents might be dead. Everyone she used to know was probably dead. But the one she knew for sure was dead was Peter Parker. She saw him on the news helping people get to safety, with no concern for his own wellbeing. Yeah, she knew Peter was Spider-Man. It was something she figured out on her own, and when she casually mentioned adding another kind of chemical to enhance his web fluid (while he was not-so-subtly creating it under his desk), he had stared at her in disbelief for what seemed like hours. She remembered Ned being happy about finally having someone to talk about it with. What followed was a series of ridiculously overdramatic villains and explosive escapades that Michelle always had to hear from Ned every day at school. But those were stories she'd never hear again. Peter's death was probably the most definite thing she could assume. That, combined with the fact that everyone else she knew was dead, just hurt like hell.

Picking herself up out of her grief, Michelle stuck the photo strip into her backpack. She needed to move, to travel to another location before someone accidentally found her. She couldn't afford to take any risks. After surviving for this long, one learned to never get too confident or too comfortable. It was safer to just keep moving, to keep on your feet. No one could find you if you were never around to be found.

She left the treehouse and started on her way. The neighborhood had rundown houses, some overrun with ivy and weeds. The weather wasn't too bad, the sun peeking through the clouds as she walked onto a backroad away from the neighborhood. Michelle didn't normally travel by road, preferring to keep to the woods to better stay out of sight. But there wasn't a lot of woods in the direction she was going. A single string of trees lined each side of the road, open fields on their other side. The cement was broken, weeds springing up in the cracks. Another few years and the road would be gone, Michelle thought, just like everything else on the planet.

When she walked, Michelle would often think of what the other countries must be like. America was no doubt a beaten-down scrapyard with bandits running loose through the wild wilderness, but what were the other countries like? America had been one of the first to get hit, so Michelle had no idea what the rest of the world was like. She figured Wakanda was safe, hidden by its cloaking technology that doubled as an impenetrable force field. King T'Challa had known this war would happen, and put his entire country off the map to keep them safe.

Michelle understood how that might have been the smartest thing to do.

The teen came upon a field barred by a fence, a barn and farmhouse resting in the middle of it. A truck was in the gravel driveway, its paint rusted and chipped. This was the exact kind of place where bandits would set up ambushes. They'd lure victims in with a promise of safety only to gut them as they passed through the door. Michelle was not so foolish and had every intention to keep on her way when something else caught her eye. Trotting toward her from the field was a chestnut horse, its ribs showing and its knees knobbly. But its dark gaze was fixed on her as it approached the fence, its nose extended out to her, ears pricked forward as it nickered a greeting. She was probably the first human it had seen in forever. Glancing around, Michelle tentatively stepped forward and flattened her gloved palm against its nose. The horse seemed to relish her touch.

"Gets lonely out here, doesn't it?" she asked softly. Michelle hadn't talked in a while, at least not out loud. She only ever whispered little reminders to herself or lists of supplies she needed to restock. She used to hum occasionally, but stopped when it almost gave her away to some prowling looters.

The horse nickered again, and Michelle stroked the slim white blaze running down its face to its nose. It was nice, she thought to herself, coming in contact with another living thing. The animals she was used to seeing were coyotes, deer, raccoons and squirrels, but never anything like a horse. She had seen plenty of dead ones, gutted out for meat, but never a live one. Michelle knew if any gangs found this horse, it would surely be killed for food. How had it lasted this long anyway?

"You're a survivor, like me," she told it, the animal's eyes locked on hers. She scratched at its cheek and straightened its forelock between its ears. "We're loners. Better on our own."

The horse bobbed its head in her hands, like it was agreeing with her, and she smiled at it. "Yeah, you know what I'm talking about."

Then, a distant rumbling sound caught her attention. It sounded like a helicopter, and it got nearer and nearer by the second. The incoming noise must have frightened the horse, for it lurched away from her and took off across the field in a sprint. Michelle decided to follow its example and run back to the road, diving into the tree line amongst some dense shrubbery to hide. She hadn't heard a helicopter in years, since several well-placed EMP blasts knocked out the power across the country. What had gotten it in the air?

It swooped overhead, and Michelle saw that it wasn't a helicopter at all, but rather some kind of plane with helicopter-like turbines in each wing. It was bulky and gray, making the trees sway as it flew over her head and followed the street. A seal was painted on the side, she noticed, a large 'A', emboldened on each of its sides. Michelle knew the symbol to be the Avengers classic trademark, but she knew better than to assume it had anything to do with the superhero team. It could be just some ganglord that captured an airfield and had gotten it working again. There was just a much higher chance of it being bad rather than good, and that was a chance Michelle wasn't willing to take.

The plane's course then halted over the road, and began to lower itself until its wheels touched down on the broken cement. Refusing to break her perfect streak of never getting captured, Michelle took off through the tree line in the other direction. She crossed a smaller section of the field and made for the forest on the other side, blood pounding in the girl's ears as she sprinted across the green grass. It was only when she reached the shelter of the trees did she finally stop, heaving and panting for breath. She looked back and saw the aircraft taking to the air again, but it didn't come after her like she thought it would. Instead, it continued on along the road, until it gained speed and disappeared entirely.

And when she said disappeared, she literally meant disappeared. The thing actually vanished before her eyes, like it had some cloaking devise.

But Michelle didn't want to work that out right now, and decided to keep moving. She felt better being in the safety of the forest, with trees swaying gently over head and its green leaves providing shade. She knew that wolves were in these woods though. She had seen a few rummaging around the trash cans in a town she had passed a few days ago. She would have to be careful.

Michelle walked for hours, stopping occasionally to rest or drink from one of her water bottles. She'd have to make camp soon, since the days were getting shorter and night was now starting to settle sooner. While she may like traveling in the woods, she didn't particularly like camping in them, because the trees were too open and she was more vulnerable, more exposed in ways she didn't prefer. She thought about going back to the farmhouse and the horse, but it was already too far behind her. As dusk settled, she happened upon a decrepit cabin, its roof sunken in and its windows broken. After a short inspection and finding the place deserted, Michelle opted to camp there, setting up her sleeping bag and making the tiniest of fires. She put a can of ravioli over it and let it heat up a little for about an hour before tearing off the lid and eating it with a metal spoon she carried around for this purpose. This was the one thing Michelle didn't mind in her new post-apocalyptic life; the fact that she ate dinner alone. She didn't know if she should be comforted by that or saddened.

After dinner, Michelle buried the can and read a few pages of the book she had currently in her backpack, one of the few she had lifted from a half-destroyed library. It was one of the only ones that could still be read, and she had taken it without hesitation. But because books were in such short supply and she was a very fast reader, she limited herself to only four pages a day, so she wouldn't go through them all and be bored out of her mind.

After forcing herself to stop, she put the book back and took out her photo booth pictures. She liked to sleep with the strip propped up next to her, so it was the last thing she saw before she went to sleep and the first thing she saw when she woke up. And every night, Michelle always found herself focusing on the last photo in particular. She didn't know why she did, or why she kept the photo strip out at all. You could call it a sentimental thing, but then again, what else did Michelle have to remind her of home?

Having made peace with all she had lost, Michelle didn't have much else to miss back home, and as she fell asleep, no sad memories accompanied her.

Save for the charming grin of a boy she used to know.


	2. Raiders of the Lost Car

The next morning was a cold one, the weather being a little more frigid than the day before. It was very early in the morning, and a gray hue had settled over the forest. Hearing nothing out of the ordinary around, Michelle fell into her usual routine of packing up her things and moving on. She left the cabin swiftly, thinking it looked even more haunted in the daytime.

As she walked, she saw all the normal things, and when she found a road, there was a few of abandoned cars. She broke the windows of two of them, rifling through their interiors for anything good, but came up mostly empty. One of the cars had the keys in the ignition but Michelle didn't dare try to start it. It was basically shouting an invitation that said, “come kill me please!” and she wasn't about to do that.

All of the cars had their engines missing, Michelle noticed, and one of them had been completely stripped of its parts. It wasn't like it had been crashed into or anything. Its skeletal look appeared like everything had been taken off it deliberately. She didn't know what that could mean, or why anyone would take parts of a car instead of the whole thing, but it couldn't be good.

It reminded her of something Ned had said, way back when. When he was building some LEGO set after school and Michelle had hung out with him because Peter had bailed, he had said he would like to completely restore a car one day. He'd enjoy getting all the parts together and restoring a car to its former glory. Michelle knew Ned was a huge fan of putting things together. He saw everything as a puzzle, and he considered himself pretty good at them. Michelle had once seen him put together a LEGO X-Wing using just the image on the box, since she dared him to try completing it without looking at the instructions. It had taken him quite some time, but he had done it. Even if it wasn't that big, not like a Star Destroyer or Millennium Falcon, it had still been impressive. And like always, because her thoughts had wandered to her old friend, her thoughts wandered elsewhere, to home. Michelle tried to never dwell on what she'd lost, because there was no point in wishing for everything to change. That was pointless. Michelle would more often just reminisce, look back fondly on a world that only she knew for no longer minute before moving on.

But damn her for not being able to help herself. Michelle missed her two friends, but more especially Ned. He had been probably her best friend, and that was a title she didn't give to just anyone. Peter was never really around to earn it like Ned had, because his responsibility as Spider-Man so often called him away, not that that was the only reason. He never really tried. But she had loved talking to Ned, and hearing all about his adventures where he played Peter's Guy-In-The-Chair. While Michelle had been curious to hear about Peter's life from Peter himself, he never brought it up around her. It was almost like he didn't want her to know anything, which made him seem distant and indifferent. It was like he wanted to maintain the illusion that he and Spider-Man were different people around her. She didn't understand why he would care about something like that. He knew she didn't like him because of his alter-ego. Why would that still matter?

Michelle tended not to care much for his superhero activities as it were, because Ned would tell her everything anyway, whether Peter liked it or not. Besides, not having to worry about Peter when he went on patrol was a plus. She didn't want to have to worry about him and what he did, and preferred to leave that part to Ned. But she had to admit, she would feel a little concerned for him when he came into school with a black eye and a split lip. Michelle never stopped to think about what his aunt must have have felt on a daily basis, to know her nephew was constantly risking his life to protect others. Michelle would never know, since she never got to see the Parker residence or meet the "coolest woman in the world", according to Ned. She had been to Ned's place several times, both to study or hang out when Peter was "stuck at his Stark internship". While she considered herself a bother to him, Ned was always happy to have her company. One time, she sat in while he did Guy-In-The-Chair stuff with Peter, which mostly involved quoting memes back to each other while the superhero saved a cat out of a tree. When a third voice had said something, a woman's voice Michelle didn't recognize, Ned had explained that it was simply Peter's built-in A.I., "Karen". Ned was convinced Peter had named her that because that was the name of Plankton's computer wife on Spongebob, but Peter insisted that it was just one of the first names that popped into his head. What other names he had considered, he had declined to say.

Just like every time she looked back on the fond memories she had of Ned Leeds, she found herself getting increasingly angry at Peter Parker. She knew it was illogical to get pissed off at a dead person that probably didn't deserve it, but the inclination to get mad at him was pretty strong sometimes. Yes, he was actually a really good person and had a smile that could outshine the sun. Yes, he was always apologetic for bailing and was about as friendly as a Labrador puppy, but screw him for making Michelle work to see that. Screw him for never making a real effort to connect, for never really trying to be around. Just because had a semi-good reason to be flaky didn't mean he always had to be.

That was probably why the last picture in the photo booth was so interesting to Michelle. It was one of the only moments where it was just her and Peter. Those moments were incredibly rare, and she liked to believe that that was most likely deliberate on Peter's part. He'd always get stuttery and awkward when it was just them, and she would be weirded out by him because of it. They had an almost unspoken agreement that they were to only hangout with Ned, so he could act as a barrier between them. So while Ned was probably the friendliest person Michelle had ever met and had genuine fun learning about him, Peter remained somewhat of an enigma. If it wasn't for what Ned had told her about him, Peter might as well had remained a complete stranger to her.

Realizing she was getting too fixed on the past, Michelle shook her head, tossing the thoughts from her mind. She wouldn't bother thinking about someone she'd never get the chance to know better. A part of her regretted not having tried harder on her part to be better friends with Peter, but she silenced that part immediately. He wasn't coming back, neither was Ned, and while remembering them was okay, there was no point in wishing they were alive and that things were different. That was just stupid and unhealthy.

After a while of trekking, Michelle finally came to a small, deserted town. She could just see its entrance from the top of the road, and at first glance, she knew not to go near it. The front street had stacks of cars in front of it, and an iron wall to keep everyone and everything out. Michelle ducked behind a tree when she saw someone climb atop the wall, and quickly deduced that this was some kind of bandit hideout. It was too much to hope that it was some kind of settlement of survivors. Better to just assume they were all bad, so as to not be disappointed.

Michelle waited as the onlooker paced the wall, making sure that she was keeping out of their line of sight. She took deep breaths so her heart wouldn't beat as rapidly as it usually did in these situations. The key was to stay calm and quiet. Nothing could go wrong if you were doing nothing wrong.

She let a few moments go by before peering out from behind her tree again, and saw that the person had thankfully disappeared. Moving fast while keeping low, Michelle darted from one tree to the next, scrambling up the nearest hill as to go around the town. She tried to walk as far away from it as possible, because the last thing she wanted was to attract the attention any of the town's inhabitants.

A part of her liked to have the thought of "Ooh, maybe you already have", but that wasn't a hard thing for Michelle for to ignore. She liked to consider herself impossible to sneak up on. Even when she stopped to look behind her from time to time, no one was ever there. The barren trees surrounding her offered little cover, and Michelle figured she'd hear any lurker if they tried to creep up on her. She knew how loud the sound of fallen leaves were under walking feet, and had tried hard to muffle those sounds herself, but unless you had the power of flight, there was nothing that could completely take the sound away.

And while Michelle knew there were people in the world that were capable of that, or at least maybe there used to be, none of them would be stalking some teenager in the middle of an Oregon forest.

By late afternoon, the town was far behind her and Michelle was taking a break right at the edge of the treeline, overlooking a picturesque mountain valley with a beautifully clear lake that didn't look at all irradiated. It was the kind of landscape that computers had as their default screensavers. It was like the apocalypse hadn't reached this place yet, like it wasn't part of The Wasteland that used to be the United States. It was places like these that Michelle would take out her little notebook, no bigger than her hand, and sketch the landscape as best she could. She had several pictures of different things, things she considered worthy of drawing. She thought this valley counted as worthy enough. Michelle would have even considered it a safe haven, if the gang guarding the lake weren't there.

"Raiders" they were called. They were pillagers, ransacking every small town and killing everyone they saw. They would had been turned almost insane by the catastrophic events, and would ride around on modified ATVs and armored UTVs, some even using restored cars. They seemed to be guarding the lake, and Michelle watched as they viciously killed a poor deer for getting too close to the clean water. Michelle knew these kinds of people, the kind that would selfishly guard a body of water. She had seen what happened to those who had dared to try and steal some water, and learned from their experiences that there was never a safe time to venture down to the lake for a drink. To do it would mean an incredibly likely death.

After her short break, Michelle tightened up her ponytail and adjusted her backpack, setting off again at a brisk pace. She pulled the hood up of the jacket she wore under her leather one as she stuffed her hands in her pockets. It had gotten significantly colder, and Michelle was dreading the oncoming winter. Being in California had made the weather easy to deal with, but the further north she got, the colder it would be. She had thought about heading south, but thought Canada would be a safer bet than Mexico. Besides, she was a New Yorker. She had seen some pretty rough winters before, and knew she could handle any kind of cold.

A shiver then went up her spine, but it wasn't from the chilly afternoon air. It was something else entirely, like her body was giving her a warning that something wasn't right. She glanced around, thinking maybe someone was following her, but nobody was. There was no sound except for the chipmunks scuttling through the leaves on the ground. Michelle shook her head as she dispelled the thoughts, figuring them as products of paranoia. Maybe it was even some conjuring of her overactive imagination. That could definitely be it.

For a long time, that's what she believed it was. As the feeling faded, she credited it to a curious deer who had paused to watch her. That made the most sense, in her opinion.

Michelle would figure out later that she was only half-right. A pair of doe-eyes were staring at her. They just didn't belong to a deer.

Michelle had to admit that she was proud of herself. She had been doing so good, survival-wise. Keeping away from trouble, always being careful around houses and towns, and never getting too close to people. Three years of wandering without being caught. She was the hide-and-seek champion! But that day, all that progress, all that work, all the victories her precaution had won her, evaporated the second she heard the shrill, sharp shout of someone as she crossed the road to another part of the forest. And to be honest, it was her own damn fault for not looking both ways before crossing.

"Hey! You! Stop there!" They yelled, and while most people would freeze or come to a stop, Michelle did the opposite. The moment she heard their voice, she took off in a dead-sprint. Nobody survived in The Wasteland by stopping when someone told them to. Stopping meant death, and if Michelle was to die today, she was going to go down running.

A whirring engine fired up seconds later, and Michelle knew they were coming after her. That all but sealed her fate. She'd never outrun a vehicle.

Thinking fast, Michelle took a sharp turn down a hill and half-slid, half-fell down the incline, right into a nestle of bushes that provided just enough shelter for her to hide. The vehicle's engine got louder as it got closer and eventually, it shot over the hill, a hideous UTV with bloodied spikes chained to the front and steel plates lining its sides. It continued to drive away from Michelle, much to her relief, but the footsteps that trampled down the hill cut her inward victory dance short.

"Fuck, where'd she go?" Someone asked gruffly, and when they came into view, three guys dressed in shoddy old SWAT uniforms with damaged body armor. They were Raiders, and Michelle did everything in her power to keep perfectly still and quiet. She barely even breathed for fear it might give her away.

"The bitch can't have gotten far," another replied, and she heard the cocking of a gun that sent goosebumps along her skin, "Do you think it was her who blew up our car?"

"No, that was a guy. I saw him," the third Raider answered, sounding very irritated. So these guys had lost a car semi-recently. She wondered if the person who blew it up was still around. She heard the man continue, "but that girl's hiding somewhere around here. We'll find her."

A chuckle rippled through the small group, an evil kind of laugh that Michelle could easily decipher. From her hiding spot, she could see the looks the Raiders’ shared between them, the winks and wicked grins, and she suddenly wished that the UTV had just run her over. Anything would've been better than what the villains were planning once they found her.

A rustling sound came from the trees above her, but Michelle paid no attention to it. The three Raiders were spreading out, the last guy that had spoken scouting around nearby while the others moved off in different directions. He had some kind of short-lengthed, double-barrel shotgun in his hand, and he used it to poke around the foliage. A squirrel shot by at one point during his search, and he was seconds away from blowing it off the ground until a spruce tree above him rustled violently. Its needles were still intact, and the Raider pointed his weapon upward. The tree swayed then sat motionless. It was almost like it had moved on its own, since there was no wind and no one appeared to be on it.

The Raider stared up at it for a minute longer before grunting dismissively, and finally turned toward Michelle's cluster of bushes that acted as her hiding spot. She should've taken out her glock or her machete during her full-on sprint through the woods, but had been so caught up in just trying to hide to think of equipping either one. She thought if she moved fast enough, she could slip her machete off her backpack and trying going for the guy's hand before he had the chance to completely destroy her face with that shotgun. She'd gotten this far at least. If Michelle had been prepared to go down running, she might as well try to go out fighting.

Once he had poked his shotgun into the bush, the barrel coming extremely close to her ear, Michelle reached behind her back and ripped her machete free from her backpack's confines, bringing it down swiftly on the guy's hand. She was so surprised that it actually worked, the Raider yelping in pain as he dropped the gun to grip his newly-slashed hand, that it took her a moment to gather her senses enough to recoil out of the bushes into the open space. Tumbling backward, Michelle quickly regained her feet to break into a run, not stopping to see the man pick up his shotgun again with his uninjured hand to aim it at her fleeing figure. She heard a shot go off, fully expected it to hit her, but it didn't. The bullet had slammed into a tree a little bit to her left and had taken off a chunk of bark, leaving a harsh gash in its wake. Michelle kept running, not processing that she never heard a second shot, not caring that the Raider wasn't following her, not thinking for a second to go back and see why.

If she had, she would've seen him stuck to the ground. If she had, she would've seen his two companions return at the sound of the gunshot, only to find themselves in the same sticky situation. The UTV was too far away to help, and even if the gunshot's echo could be heard from where it was, the driver would have figured that the first shot had been a successful one. If they'd gone to check it out, they'd find their pals... a little stuck.

Michelle, on the other hand, wouldn't dream of going back. Not in a million years. She didn't stop moving until it was dark, until the sun was already set. She couldn't keep up her running speed for very long, but actively maintained a fast walking pace. It wasn't until she finally stopped to breathe that she wondered why her attacker hadn't come after her, why he only fired one shot. As Michelle put her machete away, she knew she was too far away to get answers, but then again, they were answers she didn't need.

Realizing that she was now in the middle of a forest with night quickly approaching and no road in sight, Michelle set off again. She hated being out in the woods in the dark. She absolutely abhorred it. There was no shelter, no barrier between her and any wild animals that might be around. If a bear decided that it wanted a human for a late-night snack, it wouldn't have to look very far.

So, instead of stopping to camp, Michelle took out her flashlight, powered by some scavenged batteries, and kept walking. She needed to find a road or something before she could start to feel safe again. She still wasn't entirely convinced that those men from before had given up their search for her, but if they hadn't found her by now, they never would.

She didn't know if it was the darkness of the forest or her increased paranoia of being followed, but when the trees rustled suddenly above her, Michelle dropped her backpack and immediately rifled through it for her glock, switching off her flashlight in the process. She took two bullets from her ammo pocket and loaded them into the gun's cartridge as fast as she could. Having practiced this quick routine a lot for when certain situations popped up, the shaking of her hands was minimal as she cocked a bullet into place and pointed upward toward the tops of the darkened trees. While Michelle couldn't see anything, she was through with being scared of nothing. Even it was some owl that thought it was fun to follow her around, she wouldn't hesitate taking its wing off if it meant that it'd leave her alone. She'd risk giving away her position for a little peace of mind right about now.

"Fuck you, ya feathery bastard," Michelle swore at the invisible owl or something like that, convinced that's what it was.

When nothing happened, she felt a little silly. But despite that, she kept her gun tight in her grip even as she lowered it. As she continued to walk, she kept alert at the sounds the trees made. There were still real dangers to be aware of and she opted to load more bullets into her small handgun. She was completely serious about a bear thinking about eating a human as a snack, and a few shots to its head might kill it or at least slow it down. Unlike invisible owls, bears were a very real threat, especially given where she was. And she still wasn't entirely convinced that those Raiders with the lost car had stopped looking for her.

What she would do for a tiny sense of safety. But in this world, there was nothing of the kind.


	3. Along Came A Spider

Michelle traveled all night. Her fear of the woods kept the dreariness from affecting her too much. The bear threat had really gotten to her head, but she blamed herself for that. She should really stop thinking about bears when she's walking through dark forests. That was a bad habit that might be worth breaking.

But if she was being honest, pulling an all-nighter while walking at an increasingly slowing pace wasn't something she'd consider doing twice. When she saw the sky start to brighten with pale morning light, she felt a faint sense of relief. Her breath came out all misty because of the chill in the air. She rubbed her hands together and tried her best to warm them up, with little success. She made a mental note to search for some winter clothes in the next house she came across. Gloves would be super _handy_ right about. That was a pun that would have made Ned laugh. He had loved dumb puns...

Maybe due to exhaustion or sleep-deprivation, but Michelle’s sense of alertness took a hit when she saw the sky start to lighten. Her anxiety of the dark fading with the night, she allowed herself to feel a bit tired. At one point, she leaned against a tree for a water break and she didn’t even register the fact that it swayed when something jumped onto its branches. Her weary mind was too tired to try and even explain it. It was like she didn’t care if it was dangerous. If it wanted to kill her, it was welcome to. At least that meant she could rest.

She slid down the tree to sit against it, backpack pressing against the rough bark. Michelle set her gun down beside her, thankful that she could finally stop holding it. She had almost put back it in her backpack at the first sign of light but when she thought she saw someone out of the corner of her eye, she decided against it. Even if it had been nothing, Michell believed in the phrase “better safe than sorry”. It had saved her many times in the past. It didn’t matter that she had almost dropped it a few times already.

Michelle had her eyes closed for no longer than a minute when she fell asleep. She thought if she let herself blink for longer than usual it would substitute as a power nap. Evidently her brain wanted the real thing, for when she was jolted awake by something hitting her head. She indignantly looked down at the culprit and saw that it was a pine cone. Her brain immediately waking up, Michelle grabbed her gun and scrambled to her feet, only to freeze the second she straightened up.

About seventy paces away from her, walking casually through the woods, were four Raiders, all wearing some kind of football gear with tacky chains and steel plating. One of them was carrying a rifle and another a handgun. The motorcycle helmets that had on their heads all had spikes, but it didn't look like they had come in any kind of vehicle. They must just be out for an afternoon stroll.

Michelle started to back up slowly, eyes trained on the Raiders, yet she chanced a glance at the pine cone that now lay dormant on the forest floor. She silently thanked the squirrel had been carrying it then coincidentally dropped on her. What a lucky break!

Or at least it was lucky until the Raiders saw her.

"We got a live one!" one of the Raiders squealed in manic excitement, and a chorus of amused laughs rumbled toward Michelle as they all started sprinting toward her.

Michelle took off like a startled deer. She could outrun these guys without a doubt. She didn’t have any stupid armor weighing her down and nothing to hold her back. Movement came from the trees above her, but Michelle paid no mind to it, even as it followed her from tree to tree. A shot went off from behind her, the bullet lodging itself in the tree directly to her right. The splintering wood made her recoil away from it, turning sharply to go left, and her feet struggled to meet that request. She could hear the Raiders laughing hysterically behind her as they ran to keep up, and they definitely sounded like they were getting closer.

Another shot rang out, this time hitting the ground in front of her her, and Michelle instinctively tried to stop. She fell forward slightly but fought to keep on her feet. She looked to her left and saw the Raider with the rifle standing just yards away from her. They must have run to cut Michelle off when she had turned. As the other Raiders caught up, they all started to chuckle villainously and the the one with the rifle commanded for Michelle to drop the glock she still clutched in her hand. She shook her head. Another Raider leapt at her from behind and threw her roughly to the ground, ripping the gun from her hand. A laugh echoed through the group as they stood over her. The Raider with the handgun took aim on Michelle, who had closed her eyes tightly so she couldn’t see it coming.

Well, three years wasn’t such a bad streak.

_Thwip, thwip._

”What the fuck?!” A Raider shouted in confusion.

_Thwip, thwip, thwip._

Michelle hit the ground, shielding her head, as a thud sounded from next to her, followed by several shouts of rage. The rifleman fired again, but when the rapid shuffling of feet continued, she figured they had missed.

Michelle opened her eyes slightly so she could see the ground around her. She could see the feet of the Raiders moving around, as well as a pair of Nikes that jumped here and there sporadically. Michelle looked around until she saw her gun laying just four feet away from her. Checking to make sure she could reach it without being noticed, she reasoned they were all too busy fighting to pay her any attention. Moving quickly, Michelle got up and slid toward her gun. The shuffling suddenly ceased and when she looked back, all the Raiders were unconscious on the ground, stuck in some weird white substance. Only a stranger with a gray hoodie and a big hiker’s backpack stood above them. They swiveled to look at Michelle, and she ghosted her finger over her gun’s trigger. She didn’t know who this guy was or what his motives were, and she wasn’t keen to find out.

”Mich-.” But Michelle panicked before he could finish whatever it was he was about to say, and she fired before she even had time to think it through. The person dodged the bullet impossibly quick. Michelle had never seen anyone dodge a bullet before.

Except one person.

“Michelle!” The guy shouted, but she couldn’t hear him over the blood roaring in her ears. She fired again, but he only dodged like before, and he lunged at her to grab both her arms. He had pushed the gun out of his face just in time before she fired a third time, and he winced at the sharp sound. That should make his ears ring.

Michelle kicked out both his legs, and she rolled them over so she sat on his stomach. His grip on her arms was like iron, and she tried to wrench herself free. He attempted to speak again, but Michelle was so blinded by the adrenaline that came from fighting that she barely registered his words. She kneed him hard in the side, and he grunted from the blow of the force. His grip loosened just enough for her to swing her gun down across the bridge of his nose. He yelped in pain, and if the situation hadn’t been so dire, she would’ve laughed at how high his voice got. Blood flowed freely from his nose, and with her hands now free of restraint, Michelle cocked her gun and pressed the barrel to the space between the stranger’s eyes. She shut her own and was about to fire a fourth and hopefully final time when the guy suddenly screamed, "Michelle, wait!"

For the first time in her life as a survivor, Michelle froze. It wasn't the fact that he said her name, nor the desperate plea for mercy that made her pause, rather the voice. She knew that voice, and if she knew that voice as well as she thought she did, then he would know her, hence why he said her name. She refused to open her eyes, in case she was disappointed, but a year's worth of memories connected that voice with someone else, someone Michelle had long accepted as dead. It had to be... But how..?

Taking her finger off the trigger, Michelle slowly peeked her eyes open to gaze at the panic-stricken boy that laid dumbstruck underneath her, his nose smeared with blood. His hood had fallen back to reveal chocolate-colored curls, a few falling nicely across his forehead, his dark brown eyes locked on hers. His teeth were gritted because of the gun digging into his skin, breathing short and fearful. The shock from seeing him alone almost made Michelle drop her gun, and a sharp gasp escaped her lips as she stared at him in thunderstruck horror.

"Parker?"

"Ya know, getting chased by bad guys isn’t what I meant by ‘stay safe’, MJ," the long-dead Peter Parker choked out, and Michelle recalled that that was the last text he ever sent her, “and, um, this isn’t how I saw this reunion going, if I'll be honest.” His voice pitched from his anxiety. But despite that, the smallest of smiles danced across his lips.

And that’s when red-got rage started to course through Michelle’s veins.

"You...” Michelle began through gritted teeth, her brain slowly accepting the reality of who she was seeing, “are supposed to be _dead_!”

"If you don't move that gun, I actually will be," was all he said in reply, his tone not rising to meet hers.

It was at his words that she realized the compromising potion they were in; her straddling him, his hands settled on her thighs. It was too similar to another kind of activity. He must have realized it too, for he quickly released her and she recoiled away off of him until she was at a reasonable distance. She pointed her gun at him to keep him away, because she needed a moment to breathe and give her brain a moment to take everything in. She couldn't do that with him all up in her space. She watched him closely as he took his backpack and dug through it until he found a tissue. He kept his eyes on hers as he wiped his nose.

"How you been doing, MJ?" Michelle barely heard his question through the tissue. That and also because she was so busy being furious with him.

Peter Parker had no right to be alive, not after she had mourned him along with Ned, along with the rest of the people she knew. He didn't get to show up after so long, looking no different than the last time she saw him in Manhattan three years ago. He didn't deserve to ask how she was in a stupidly casual way, to use her nickname like they hadn’t ever been apart. He didn't get to do that. He didn't get to do this to her.

"What the actual _fuck_ , Parker?!" Michelle snarled in her nastiest voice. His eyes went wide, and she spat, "How long have you been following me?"

"Yesterday morning, but to be honest, I only figured out it was you last night," Peter replied with a shrug, "You know, when you called me a feathery bastard. And can you please sleep at night? You were killing me, dude."

Michelle stayed silent. She wouldn’t let his weirdly light-hearted nature throw her off, nor would she let him trick her into liking him. No, she was infuriated with him. Nothing was going to change that.

"Why..?” Michelle began to ask, but her voice caught in her throat. She couldn’t tell if it was from being so angry or if it was from being so overwhelmed. She cleared her throat before continuing, “Why didn't you do anything before?" She could hardly think because of the tidal wave of emotions she was feeling, as well as the two questions that were beginning to form in her head. What was he doing in Oregon, and if he was alive, who else was?

"Well, I got sidetracked. Had to deal with some bad guys. You know how it is."

"All too well."

Silence fell between them as Michelle put the pieces together. So it must have been him who blew up the Raiders’ car. At that thought, she became acutely aware that she was lying just feet away from a group of unconscious psychopaths. She closed her eyes briefly as she took a steadying breath. She quietly stood back up and took out her glock’s ammo cartridge before slipping the gun and the cartridge into one of the pockets of her backpack. Without another look in Peter’s direction, she started to walk away. Away from the situation, away from the knocked-out Raiders, away from Peter.

As if confused by this, the boy practically tripped over himself to follow her.

”Wait, MJ, what’s wrong?” He asked as he ran to walk beside her. He was still holding that tissue to his nose. “Aren’t you, um, happy to see me?”

”Why should I be?” Michelle asked back, not even glancing in his direction.

Peter seemed at a loss for words. “I guess I, uh, just thought you would be.”

Should she be? Peter Parker was the first person Michelle had come across that she knew, that she recognized as someone who wasn't an immediate threat. As she got further away from the Raiders, she felt more at ease, even as Peter loped at her side.

"Can we stop, just for a second?" He suddenly asked. His tissue was red now, but the bleeding had finally stopped. Despite not feeling far away enough from the Raiders, Michelle obliged, halting her steps but looking onward. She thought his nose would have been broken, but only a small scratch traced the bridge. Michelle knew he had a healing factor, so she figured his nose might have fixed itself, if it had been broken at all.

"What, Parker?" Michelle hated how tired her voice sounded, how exhausted she felt.

Peter looked at her, head tipped to the side, and he said, "I just wanna say that I'm happy to see you."

Michelle then looked at him, and the soft relief she saw in his eyes was damn near close to endearing.

"Like, I thought you were dead," Peter went on, "After the initial bombings, Mr.Stark sent me to some of the bunkers to get a headcount of the survivors. I asked to go to your town, where you were staying in California, and when I found your grandparents, but not... you." He cleared his throat. "They'd said you gone back for something, but never returned. They were really, really sad, you don't even know."

Oh, Michelle knew. She knew how they must have grieved, but it also made her wonder.

"Who survived, if you did a headcount?"

Peter smiled slightly. "Everyone. That is, everyone you and I know. Ned, May, your parents, everybody from school. Mr.Stark was very thorough with the evacuations."

The relief was almost crippling. The sharp inhale at his words shook in her lungs. Everyone that she had spent months grieving over was alive, thanks to Tony Stark. It almost made her feel weak in the knees. She wanted to laugh, but couldn't muster the energy. She wanted to cry, but the tears refused to come. So, she settled with looking at Peter, hopefully bearing an unreadable expression, and said, "Sorry about your nose."

Michelle then continued to walk as he gave her another baffled look. He threw his bloodied tissue into a nearby bush and followed after her, saying, "Don't you want to see them? Your parents, Ned, everyone?"

 _More than anything,_ Michelle thought.

"If it were possible," she answered simply.

"It is!" Peter's tone was emphatic. "There's an Avengers outpost not far from here! I can totally take you there and we can get on a Quinjet back to New York! Mr.Stark has got a few of them working again and the one that dropped me off should be there!"

Michelle gave him a quizzical look, skeptical of what he was telling her. But he was looking at her with such a hopeful smile that she felt herself wanting to believe him. Suddenly, she had a purpose again. She no longer had to survive strictly for survival's sake. She could go home, see her family, see her best friend Ned, see all the people she had believed for so long to be gone. The universe truly was rewarding her for three years' worth of struggles. Of course, the offer was given by the one person she had grown to despise, but that was something she could deal with.

"Fine," Michelle exhaled, stopping again to look at him expectantly, "Lead the way, then."

Peter's entire face brightened. "Really?"

She rolled her eyes and made to start walking away. "No, I'm kidding. Fuck off."

But he caught her arm in his strong hand, his smile faltering. "No, I'm sorry. That was stupid. I'll take you. Please."

Her glare fixed on him, and then on his hand. He followed her eyes and he quickly let go, "Sorry, MJ, sorry."

"Don’t call me that,” she snapped, “We aren’t friends."

Peter raised an eyebrow. The crazy one that seemed to have a mind of its own. He seemed a little hurt, and opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it. Instead, he opted to search through his backpack once more until he found what he was looking for; a compass he had stowed away in his pocket and followed its arrow. It seemed to be an advanced one of some kind, emblazoned with the Avengers logo and not even pointing north.

Peter led Michelle confidently through the forest, and he explained at one point that the compass was something Mr.Stark made, built so it would point to the nearest Avengers outpost. A clever little invention, Peter had called it, and definitely useful if he ever found himself to be lost, like at the present moment.

But Michelle didn't humor him with conversation, though he tried to ask her how she had been doing over the last few years. She really didn't feel like talking at all. It wasn't just him. She just needed a few moments to herself to really grasp all the new information that was thrown at her. After a few more overly-blunt answers, Peter seemed to get that. He gave up in his attempts at conversation and they resorted to traveling in silence. He dutifully and silently followed his compass across a small river, through an old corn field and down a dirt road. Michelle noticed as they walked along that he stopped looking back to check on her, and she got the vibe that now he was a little upset with her. But then again, he might just be trying to focus. 

"Why did you come to the west coast?" She chanced the question, and just as she had inwardly predicted, he kept his eyes on his compass.

"Was ordered to." The answer was blunt and it didn't seem like he would go into detail. That’s when she knew his sudden indifference wasn’t deliberate. Probably payback for her somewhat cold nature toward him, but if he had bothered to spend any time with her during high school, he would know that this was just her personality. 

But Michelle wouldn't buy into this childish silent treatment. He would have to figure this out for himself. She wasn't going to explain herself to a boy that couldn't be burdened with her presence one-on-one. There wasn’t a Ned to act as their barrier this time around. If he wanted to be a big baby, then she'd let him. Peter could put on a happy face about seeing her all he wanted, but Michelle knew that was just a veil to hide the fact that they weren't really friends. He might have been genuinely relieved to find someone he knew, but deep down, they weren't really anything to each other. Much less real friends. Only friends got to use her nickname, and as she had stated before before, he wasn’t one of hers. 

Why couldn't it have just been Ned that found her?

"We're here," Peter reported as they stepped onto a road that was was streaked with tire tracks. There was a gate that looked to have been smashed open, and a fence that seemed to cut off half the forest. Peter looked surprised as they passed the broken gate, putting away his now-spiraling compass.

“Something’s not right,” Peter said, and moments later, they came upon an open field with a building sitting in the middle of it. It couldn’t have been more than two stories. Michelle had seen pictures of what the old Avengers Compound in upstate New York had looked like, and this building greatly resembled it. But it looked decrepit, dirty and like it had been raided several times. There wasn’t a single sign of life on the grounds. It was completely deserted.

”Shit,” Peter cursed quietly upon seeing the shoddy state of the outpost, “What the hell happened?”

”Looks like it got raided,” Michelle observed, crossing her arms, “When were you here last?”

”A year and a half ago,” he answered, “I didn’t come here when I got dropped off yesterday. Camped out at some farm house. Then I followed you and... you know.”

”Well, it’s really gone to shit,” she said, and he gave her a less-than-amused look.

”Let’s just go check it out,” he huffed, “there might be something still there that can help us.

Michelle stared at him, staying where she was. He saw that she wasn’t following him after a few steps and gestured for her to do so, but she only cocked her head.

”You have no idea what could be in there,” she pointed out, “You’re just gonna waltz in all vulnerable? What if it’s some gang hideout now?”

”I think I can take care of myself,” he reassured her, cracking his knuckles for added emphasis.

Michelle came close to punching him for that little remark. He must have sensed that inclination, for he quickly resumed his pace toward the abandoned outpost. She watched him walk away for a few seconds before groaning loudly and following after him.

The massive double doors to the outpost had been torn down and it was incredibly dark within the halls. Peter said that there might be a hidden master switch in the control room that turned all the power off in case of a meltdown or attack, and it could easily be switched back on again. Michelle took out her flashlight so they could climb the stairs without tripping, and she couldn’t help but feel on edge. She was expecting something or someone to jump out at her every time she turned a corner, but the only things they encountered were a few stray raccoons.

The two finally reached a room that had a wall of windows overlooking a massive broken-down helicopter pad, some of them being broken. Panels with different kinds of buttons were set up around the space, and Michelle leaned against a wall as Peter set to work looking for the master switch. As she watched through narrowed eyes as he practically turned over whole counters to look for this thing. When he effortlessly pulled back a shelf to look behind it, she smirked. She had forgotten how strong he actually was. Michelle remembered watching him on the news when he had stopped a runaway semi-truck during a Spider-Man escapade. But that felt like a lifetime ago.

"I'm so pissed you're alive," she said absent-mindedly. She hadn't intended to say that aloud. It just kind of came out. While true, she could imagine how that might make him feel. But he didn't show any physical signs of being hurt, only pausing briefly in his search to take a deep breath, running a hand through his hair.

"Yeah, well I wish I could say the same about you," he muttered in a voice so low she barely heard what he said.

"What was that?"

”You could help, you know,” Peter said, changing the subject as he gestured to the rows and rows of dials and buttons.

Michelle screwed up her nose in mock thought, only to say, “Intriguing offer, but I’m not trying to attract every Raider within a ten-mile radius, so I’m gonna have to pass.”

He scowled at her, and Michelle nearly laughed at him for that. A mean expression was something she had never imagined on his face. It was almost like looking at an angry bunny.

"I just want to power this phone here." He pointed to a satellite phone that was on the wall. "Not turn on every light this place has."

"Yes, and flipping this "master switch" won't automatically do that anyway."

"If you're not gonna help, then I invite you to _shut it_ ," Peter's tone was firm, but Michelle was far from fazed by it. She was more amused, if anything else.

Michelle continued to watch him intently as he looked around, moving from panel to panel, until finally, he found what he was looking for. Whatever button he pushed, the entire building seemed to come to life. Lights on the ceiling turned on and Michelle felt like she was being blinded. She told Peter to switch them off, but he was too preoccupied to hear her. He had dialed a set of numbers into the satellite phone and was holding it impatiently to his ear. Michelle marched over to him, about to tell him off for revealing their location to anyone that might be wondering by the outpost, when he suddenly started speaking into the phone.

"Captain Rogers! It's me, Peter Parker!" He said urgently, and Michelle paused mid-step, "Listen, I'm at the Oregon Outpost but it looks abandoned. Can you get a Quinjet out here? I've got a survivor with me." He looked up at Michelle at those last words, and she strained to hear what the other voice on the line was saying.

"Damn," he muttered, and he held the phone away from his face to address Michelle, "It was my Quinjet that found out this place was gone, so they had to fly it back to New York. They were thinking this place went down because it’s been radio-silent for so long, and apparently, they can't get any other Quinjets out here because they’re trying to conserve fuel."

"So they just dropped you here with no back-up plan to get you home?" She questioned in disbelief, but Peter only waved his hand for silence as he pressed the phone back to his ear.

 _Hell of a support system,_ Michelle thought, _How could they just leave him when they knew there might be a chance this place could be totaled?_

"So, where do we go, sir? What’s you new plan for getting me back?” He asked, and he started tapping his fingers against the panel's countertop as he listened, "Right, but that's in Montana. You want us to go there? But-yes, I understand-but there has to be-no, I don't mean-Captain-please, you can't expect-what?-fine, whatever."

Peter angrily slammed the phone back into its wall holder, and he peered around Michelle to look out the window. He grumbled to himself before punching the same button that had turned everything on, and in the blink of an eye, all the power went out. He then walked briskly away from the panel and toward the door, growling "we need to go" in a dark, annoyed voice. Michelle looked out the window and saw what he had seen; a convoy of spike-laden UTVs driving up the road to the outpost.

"Damn you, Parker! This is exactly what I warned you about!" Michelle shouted as she caught up with Peter at the stairs, practically running down the steps.

"Yeah, yeah, you're a fucking genius!" Peter shot back heatedly, throwing his shoulder into a door, crashing it open like it was made of cardboard. Together, they sprinted down a hall and headed for what she hoped was an exit. He seemed to know the place fairly well, taking sharp turns and catching her arm before she went the wrong way. Eventually, he blew through another door, and Michelle found that they had come out on the back lawn of the outpost. Peter pulled her against the wall and pressed her back to it, arm across her stomach as he peered around the corner of the building. He looked back at her before flipping the hood of his gray sweatshirt over his head.

"This is what's gonna happen," he began, throwing another glance over his shoulder. His eyes looked deadly serious, not a trace of warmth to be found in them. "You're going to run that way." He pointed to the trees across the lawn. "I'm going to go take care of these guys, then I'll meet up with you."

"And if you get killed?" Michelle asked, and his eyebrows furrowed.

"Then keep running," he answered simply, "You've survived this long. I suppose you're good at that by now."

She stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was mocking her or not, but eventually nodded in understanding. He had survived situations a thousand times worse than just a couple goons with guns. Actually, when she thought about it, that was exactly what he used to do as Spider-Man. This was something he could handle. She wasn't even worried.

On his signal, Michelle took off in a sprint across the lawn as he rounded the corner to make his attack. She didn't even look back. Looking back might cost her a vital step, and she didn't want to be caught up to if Peter got killed. So, without so much as a glance backward or a worrying thought, Michelle tore across the field until she hit the treeline. She supposed she should wait for him now, but no sooner had that thought crossed her mind when an explosion sounded behind her, making her keep up her pace. If Peter had survived that, he could catch up, but if he didn't, she would make sure the Raiders wouldn't.

For minutes, Michelle ran. She ran like the wind. She ran until her lungs couldn't take it anymore, until her legs were begging for mercy. Only then did she slow, and Michelle took off her backpack to search through it. She was about dying of thirst by this point, and she had just taken out one of her water bottles when she heard her name being called. The familiar voice was followed by the revving an engine, and she groaned in frustration. Was he seriously being chased right now? Michelle was about to stow away her water bottle when a UTV came into view, one of those big ones that looked like a small tank, surprisingly bare of any spikes. She also saw Peter practically hanging out of the driver's side to wave at her. She watched in confusion as he pulled up and turned the UTV off, climbing out of it to stand beside her.

"Damn, you run fast," Peter observed as he caught his breath. He pulled his hood off and ruffled his hair, and Michelle could see that his features were partially darkened by smoke.

"Like you said, I got good at running," she replied, taking a drink. She figured she owed him one by this point, and she offered her water bottle to him. He took it with a grateful smile, one she almost returned by stopped short.

"Why'd you steal that?" Michelle gestured to the vehicle parked behind them, and he quickly explained that it might be better than walking all the way to Montana.

"Right, and what's there again?" Michelle asked while he drank from the bottle waterfall-style. Bless his little heart for thinking she cared about whether his lips touched the bottle or not. He wiped his mouth as he handed it back to her, and looked around.

"Um, basically there's this waypoint there that might have a jet to take us home. It's run by SHIELD operatives and I know a few people there," Peter explained, and he probably noticed Michelle's skeptical look because he added, "And yes, I passed through there on my way here. It's fully operational and should be fine."

She nodded along as she listened, not altogether believing his certainty that this "waypoint" could still be running. But as of right now, it served as their best shot at getting home, back to her family. Michelle huffed once, said, "no time to waste then, huh?" before walking around him to the passenger side of the UTV, throwing her backpack into the back seat before climbing in. He put his own backpack in the back as well before getting into the driver's seat, putting their now-shared water bottle in a cup holder as he twisted the key in the ignition and powering it back up.

"Thanks, I guess," Michelle suddenly said, which must have caught him off guard because of the surprised look he gave her, "Don't get me wrong, I'm still mad you're alive, but this-whatever this is-this thing you're doing for me to get me home, it doesn't go unnoticed."

Peter put his hand over his heart. "Ah, and the stone softens."

"Shut up," she snapped, shoving his shoulder lightly, but Peter only laughed heartily. He seemed to no longer be being cold toward her for being cold toward him, and maybe that was something she could replicate. Maybe she could afford to be a little nicer to him. He had saved her life after all, so maybe she owed him that much. Besides, Michelle liked seeing his smile more than his scowl.

Peter sighed after he came down from his laughter, and as he pressed his foot to the gas pedal, he said, "I'll take whatever I can get from you at this point, Michelle."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update, but here’s good ol’ chapter 3. Let me know if it’s okay!


	4. Nightlight

Michelle Jones and Peter Parker drove for hours, well into the night. They had found a street and had stayed on it the whole time, occasionally taking routes that would lead them into Montana. Peter seemed to know which direction to go, and he insisted on driving so Michelle could rest. She had done a lot of traveling and deserved a break, he had pointed out. As opposed to the past things he had suggested, she didn't fight him on this one. She was dead tired, and it was nice to not have to walk everywhere for a change. 

”Hey, you know how Liz Allen moved here a few years back?” Peter asked at one point, referencing to the state of Oregon. Michelle nodded. “Well, I found her in one of the bunkers in Massachusetts. Apparently, she was there checking out Harvard.”

Michelle sat back in her seat. So Liz was also alive.

 _And the hits just keep on coming,_ Michelle thought to herself.

She briefly wondered if Peter still had a thing for Liz Allen. He used to be really hung up on her back in high school. It had been a embarrassing thing to witness, and she remembered the voicemail she had left him about how he should stop falling all over her because it made him look pathetic.

Michelle quickly cast the memory aside. That didn’t matter now, and Michelle was far from caring about his love interests.

They hadn’t spoken since that little exchange, and when the sky turned dark, she suggested that it might be wise to stop somewhere for the night. The last time Michelle had pulled an all-nighter, it hadn’t ended well.

"Hey, there might be something up there," Peter said, pointing over the dashboard. Michelle strained to see through the darkness, but eventually saw what he was gesturing to. It looked like some rundown old house, which was only one story and no bigger than an oversized garage. It was like a cottage, except the outside looked like a trailer with a decrepit porch out front.

"Not exactly Caesar’s Palace," Michelle commented, and Peter huffed in assent.

"Might have a bed though," he pointed out as he turned off the UTV, "Dibs on the floor!"

"Oh, darn." She sarcastically snapped her fingers as she feigned loss. "You win this time."

”I’ll check it out for us,” he volunteered, climbing out of his seat, “I am the Avenger, after all.”

”Avenger _scout_ ,” she corrected, and he frowned playfully at her. The warmth in his gaze was something she couldn’t find within herself to return.

Peter told her to stay in the UTV as he swept the place. He even gave her the keys just in case she needed to make a quick getaway, and she gave him her flashlight. She watched in baited apprehension as he went around the back, disappearing as he scoped out the place. She tapped her fingers impatiently against her armrest, looking around like someone could pull up at any moment. She jumped slightly when the front door suddenly opened, but it was only Peter, and he called that everything was clear while shining the flashlight toward her.

"Okay, I get it!" Michelle snapped as she held her hand in front of her face to shield her eyes, "Put that thing away before you blind me!"

He profusely apologized as he switched the flashlight off and came back to the UTV. Michelle grabbed her backpack and he did the same, and together, they went into the little house. It was abandoned, unkept and had clearly fallen into despair. Moonlight streamed through the windows, providing a little bit of light in the small space. The kitchen was smaller and that was connected to what used to be the living room, which had a worn-out couch, a coffee table and a television. Peter walked over to it and set his backpack down, saying, "What are the chances the people who used to live here paid their cable bill?"

He smiled at her, trying to get her to laugh, but Michelle ignored him, choosing instead to walk through a door that led into a single bedroom. There was a twin bed in the corner and a bathroom, a dresser and a side table but not much else. Whoever had lived here last had lived a very simple, very alone life. She even thought that this would be somewhere she could see herself living; out in the woods, away from everyone, with just enough to live comfortably.

"Hey," she turned at the sound of Peter's voice, and saw him leaning on the doorframe, arms crossed, "I'll, uh, take the couch out there."

"Sounds good," Michelle said with a nod, but she noticed that he was lingering. Did he want to say something else?

"What?"

"You said before that we aren't friends," he began, his tone pensive, "Can you tell me why?”

Michelle sighed heavily. "If you have to ask, then you don’t deserve to know.”

”What kind of answer is that?”

”An honest one.”

He quirked his mouth, rocking back and forth on his heels. “I just always thought we were.”

"I don’t know how you could have,” She said with a glimmer of a sneer in her tone, "We weren’t necessarily close."

He got quiet again, and she saw him nod along, like he was agreeing. If he already knew that they weren’t close, then why was he asking if they were even friends? What was the point of this conversation?

”Was Ned your friend?” He asked, looking down at his feet.

”Yeah, I considered him my friend, because he tried to be, ya know? He tried to include me in everything and actually tried to get to know me. You could never be bothered.”

He looked up at her at that. There was some kind of unspoken plea in his eyes. “I don’t get how you can say that. I tried to-.”

”Oh, don’t bullshit me.” Michelle stopped the lie before he could tell it, sparing him the sin. “You never tried and you never wanted to. You hated when I was around and you know it, so do me a favor and don’t lie to my face.” 

She could see the regret in his eyes now, as if he didn’t want it to be true, like he was wishing he had tried all those years ago. But whatever they could’ve had was blasted apart long before any bomb got the chance. Peter himself had made sure of that.

Michelle didn’t care what he said to make himself feel better. It didn’t matter. They weren’t ever anything, and even though they had found each other after so long a time, nothing could change that. Peter wasn’t a friend bringing her home. He was simply a means to an end.

He opened his mouth like he wanted to speak again, but she turned away before he could form a word, saying, “Goodnight, Parker.”

As Michelle inspected the bed, she heard his light footsteps step out of the room, and the door click closed. She didn’t pay his departure any attention, focused on the bed. She was pretty certain it was probably riddled with mites or other bed bugs, but if she slept on her sleeping bag, it might be okay.

“Michelle?” He called softly through the door, and she stilled her movements to listen.

”I never hated you.”

She held her breath for what felt like the longest time, refusing to answer him or even acknowledge his words. He didn’t deserve that from her. He didn’t deserve anything from her. 

Michelle waited for what felt like hours before she finally released the breath she was holding, it coming out shaky and uneven. Her chest hurt like hell, like rocks had just grown inside her lungs. She turned to the wall and pressed her back to it, slowly sliding down the wood until she was sitting on the floor. She pulled her knees to her chest and dug her nails into her jeans. Michelle was used to fighting back her emotions, when they weighed heavy on her heart like this. 

But this time felt different. The other times were usually caused by grief or loss, but this was a new pain entirely. And she couldn’t entirely place it. 

Maybe it was over the loss of something she never had.

Or, if she was being realistic, it was due to the overwhelming relief of having a promise of home again. Michelle’s family was alive. Everyone she had mentally buried was alive. The ones she had set flowers against a tree for one time in the spring, they were alive. Ned, who she had buried a PS4 controller for, was alive. Betty Brant, who she had taped a black headband to a tree for, was alive. She had even burned the pages of some old school textbook for Liz Allen. Even Peter, who Michelle had thrown an old Star Wars DVD she had found into a pond for, was alive.

But right now, she couldn’t decide if that last revelation was a good or bad thing.

It was like being haunted by a living ghost. Peter represented everything Michelle had thought she lost, and for it to all be safe in actuality, it almost didn’t feel... _real_.

She didn’t sleep well that night. After two hours of staring at the ceiling, Michelle decided to read some of her novel, using the moonbeams filtering through window shades as a nightlight. During her search however, she came upon a different book; an old sketchbook with all her high school drawings. She knew the things that lied within its pages, and didn’t dare chance a look. Pictures of her classmates during Decathlon, the teachers’ bored expressions during classes, Ned sitting at his computer and Peter sulking in detention...

Michelle shoved the sketchbook back into her backpack at that last thought. Unfortunately, she had been cursed with the presence of the real thing. Why had she ever found Peter worthy to bear any territory in her sketchbook? He hadn’t earned any of the space she had generously gifted him upon those blank pages.

Michelle tried to read some of her novel, but could only get through a few paragraphs. As awake as her brain was, it didn’t seem to want to focus, nor did it want to rest. She figured she should have felt less uneasy, with Peter sleeping right outside her door. His senses would alert them of any danger before it even got close. But Michelle found herself staring at the ceiling, sometimes glancing at the door. She was convinced that if she listened hard enough, she could hear him breathing out there. Did he snore? Did he talk in his sleep? Was he log or did constantly flip from side-to-side? Why did she suddenly care about his sleeping quirks? Michelle shook her head and flattened her hands over her eyes. God, she was just so fed up, with everything.

Eventually, she dozed off into a half-sleep, and by the time she had finally sunk into it, there was a knock on her door. But she had long since equated that sound with danger, and the second she heard it, she took her gun from where it rested on the nightstand, every instinct telling her to shoot the knocker repeatedly. But Peter himself had an entirely different instinct, one that warned him of _her_ instincts seconds before she made a decision. The moment her gun was raised, he swung open the door and enveloped the barrel of the pistol in webbing, yanking it toward himself before she could even touch the trigger. He caught the gun in his hand, and he angrily shook the handle at her.

"Can we just... agree that you _won’t_ shoot me every time you see me?” Peter asked her, and she could tell he was fighting to keep his voice calm, "It’s getting a tad irritating.”

"Plus, I wouldn't have missed this time either," Michelle grumbled, and his scowl only deepened.

"Can we just agree that you won't try to shoot me anymore?"

"I try not to make promises I might not be able to keep.” She narrowed her eyes at him, waiting for a reaction to her words, but he didn’t give her one as he wordlessly stared at her.

”Let’s just get out of here, please,” he said before walking out of the room.

”You still have my gun, asshole.”

”I’ll give it back to you in the car,” he called back, and it was her turn to scowl.

Peter had been undoubtedly the king of broken promises back in high school, and she was sure he knew it too. Many a Decathlon meeting went by with him “promising to show up”, a study session he could never make but “promised to next time”. He was about the flakiest person she’d ever had the misfortune to know, and while his reasons were somewhat concrete, Michelle wished he would have just stopped promising things that he knew he couldn’t see through.

Silently, Michelle gathered up all of her belongings and set them safely inside her backpack. By the time she wandered into the living room, Peter was already outside, fiddling with something inside his backpack. She walked out of the small house and noticed her gun tucked into the back of his pants. Knowing sneaking up on him would be pointless, Michelle thought of another way to get her weapon back.

”Hey, Parker,” She beckoned, rounding the front of the dune buggy toward him. If he knew she was near him, then he wouldn’t see her as a threat. It seemed to work, because he didn’t turn around as he gave some nonverbal sound that signaled that she had his attention. He was too busy messing with something in his backpack to notice her. Perfect.

He went still as Michelle grabbed the handle of her gun, not yet pulling it from the back of his pants.

”Touch my stuff again,” Michelle began, giving her pistol a threatening click which made him tense, “and this will be the last time I hesitate to shoot you.” 

”C-Copy that,” he stuttered, and she drew her gun away before putting the safety on and stuffing it into one of the pockets of her backpack. She had just tossed it into the back seat when Peter leapt over the front of car, wrapping his arm around her waist, and followed it up with probably the gentlest tackle she had ever experienced. When she found herself on the ground, Peter was hovering over her, a weird red-and-gold iron glove on his hand with a small beam of light in the center of his palm.

“If we’re gonna be stuck together,” he started, his teeth gritted and eyebrows furrowed, “we’re gonna have to learn how to trust each other, okay? That means no more threats, no more almost-shooting-me, none of it, you hear me?”

”I’ll never trust you,” she spat back at him, her rage theatening to boil over.

”And I don’t need you to,” he answered back sharply, “but this whole thing where we almost kill each other has got to end. Only one of us might make it to New York but I’d rather have one us die in defense of the other than, well, anything else. You know what I mean.”

”But what if-.”

”But nothing, Michelle!” He was practically shouting now, and his face was getting redder by the second. She had never seen him so angry before. It was quite puzzling, especially when he was pointing an odd iron glove at her face. Plus, he had pinned her to the ground before she could even protest. It had been so fast that she was honestly more impressed than mad. “I’ll never give you a reason to kill me, okay? Trust me, if by some chance I ever, _ever_ hurt you, I’ll take your gun and just shoot myself. How ‘bout that?”

”If you applied that rule in high school, you’d be dead by now,” she growled up at him, and his angry expression changed into one of surprise.

”What do you mean-?”

”What is that thing?” Michelle cut him off before he could finish his question, gesturing to the iron glove on his hand. His question, if entirely asked, would have only opened up another can of worms like the night before, and she wasn’t in the mood to explain all his faults to him again. 

“Uh, it’s one of Mr.Stark’s hand repulser things,” Peter answered, closing his hand in a fist as he picked himself up off the ground, “Out here, he thought it would be, um, _handier_ than a gun.”

He raised his eyebrows at her, hoping for an amused reaction, but Michelle didn’t give it to him. He offered his hand to help her up, but she knocked it away as she got to her feet by herself. He was the only person she knew that could make a joke after a tense situation, and as they stared at each other, she realized that that trait wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

He had a point, Michelle figured. They were going to be together for a while, and it would be easier to deal with if they didn’t spend the entire trip being at each other’s throats. While she was a long way from trusting him, she thought that she could grant him this tiny piece of leniency, at least for now.

”But, uh, do we have a deal?” Peter asked, extending his gloveless hand out to her, a hopeful grin on his face, “I know you’re used to playing the Lone Wanderer, but maybe you’ll find that having a companion at your side isn’t so bad.”

”First of all, I was more into The Elder Scrolls myself,” Michelle pointed out, keeping her arms crossed. She considered him for a moment more, making him wait as his hand hung in the air. But after a few more seconds thinking, she reached out her own hand and shook his. The feel of his palm was warm against her own. “But you’re right, I always liked having a companion when I went dungeon-raiding.”

Peter smiled. “Then we have an accord?”

”See? This is why I’m not happy you’re alive, because you say shit like that,” Michelle snapped with a roll of her eyes as she turned and climbed into the passenger seat of the dune buggy, “This isn’t fucking Pirates of the Caribbean.”

”Oh come on, that was a cool line!” He whined, crossing in front of the car and getting into the driver’s seat. He started the car and it rumbled to life. He touched a part of his wrist and the glove receded off his hand, forming into a sort of watch around his wrist. She frowned at that. She had never witnessed what Stark technology had looked like up close (Peter’s Spider-Man suit didn’t count. That was nothing but advanced spandex) and to see it with her own eyes was confusing. How did it still work so perfectly despite everything that had happened?

”You know, Michelle, if we do make it to New York, we should see about becoming actual friends.” Michelle gave him an unamused look. “Seriously, if I was as horrible as you say I was, give me a chance to make it right.”

Michelle continued to stare at him. She was so baffled that she couldn’t find the words to respond. It was too late for this, three years too late for him to care. He had missed his chance. He couldn’t just roll out of the grave and attempt to rekindle their friendship with her. Was it even considered rekindling if it hadn’t even started? Either way, Michelle knew she should cut him off right now, before he went on, but she couldn’t find it within herself to speak.

Peter gave her a long look, as if he expected her to respond, but when she didn’t, he went on, “You don’t have to answer now obviously. But just know, if we both somehow survive, that’s what I intend to do.”

”And if that’s not what I want?” Michelle asked, and Peter drove the buggy onto the road.

”Then let’s just hope I die then,” he shrugged, and her eyes widened. He saw her look and laughed, “I just don’t wanna live in a world where we aren’t friends.”

She continued to stare at him, even until they were well down the road. What were these things coming out of his mouth? Michelle had never felt so bewildered in her entire life.

”You confuse me, Parker,” was all she could manage to say, and he only smiled.

”And you terrify me, Jones,” he said back, and she found herself smirking.

Maybe this punk had a chance after all. A tiny chance, like a glimmer of faded light.

A nightlight of a chance.

Granted, he was still annoying as all hell and Michelle still despised him on some level, but there was something there. Something genuinely sincere in his tone. For the first time in forever, this sounded like a promise Peter intended to keep. Maybe they had the smallest prospect at a friendship.

Funny how all it took was the end of the world for that to become a possibility.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your lovely comments! It really means a lot! <3


	5. High School Hustle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what happens when you try doing too many things at once. Oh man, I've been M.I.A for a while, huh? But fear not! I'm back in action and ready to go. I tried to come back strong with this chapter, so I hope it doesn't disappoint. Enjoy! :)

_It was easier to hate someone when you were convinced they hated you too_.

These were the kind of thoughts Michelle had as they traveled, and she found herself staring at him through narrowed eyes for minutes at a time. He would be so focused on driving that he wouldn't notice, and when he did glance at her, she'd quickly look away.

Michelle was at a supreme loss. For years, she had built up a solid hatred for this boy. Now, she was wondering why. Why had she been mad at him? He was nothing like the image she had built for him in her head. And he was nothing like he used to be. She remembered him as this indifferent, closed-off jerk that wouldn't let her anywhere near his personal life. So why was he not being like that now? Had years of solitude really skewed her memory of him that badly?

But damn, she wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate him _so bad_ , but she knew that would be illogical and unfair. He hadn't done anything to earn her hostility yet, and she knew she should take it easy on him. She hated the old version of Peter after all, not this new, cheery, doe-eyed version of Peter.

But what about him changed? Had he dumped his old personality in the face of tragedy?

 _What the hell happened to him? More importantly, what the hell happened to_  me _?_

Their dune buggy ran out of gas around midday, and they left it dead on the side of the road. Peter had no idea how far away they still were from the Montana border, but wherever they were, it was lightly snowing and really, really cold. Peter suggested they try to find a house or a town and try to find winter clothes. It wasn’t going to get any warmer, he said.

But besides that little remark, they walked mostly in silence. Michelle didn’t really know how to talk to him, and couldn’t seem to figure it out as she trailed behind him. How do you talk to someone whose personality you couldn't pinpoint?

”So,” she began pensively, gripping the straps of her backpack, “is Ned still into LEGOs?”

Peter laughed heartily. “Oh, yeah. It’s one of the only ways he keeps busy anymore.” He jumped over a log. “Sometimes, when Mr.Stark sends me out, I’ll find a toy store or something and pick up a couple LEGO sets for him if I find any. There’s nothing he hasn’t built.”

”Why... did Mr.Stark choose you, to do this?” Michelle asked curiously, gesturing between the two of them, “To go looking for survivors and checking out bunkers?”

”I, uh, I kinda volunteered to,” he answered, casting a shy look behind her, “I know I said Mr.Stark sent me and stuff, but I may have, you know, _asked_ to be sent. All the other Avengers were out doing something, and I just wanted to do my part. I mean, it was either me or Black Widow doing this.”

”To be honest, I’ve always kind of wanted to meet her,” she mused, “Like, she’s a total badass. Hey, if she’s in New York when we get there, will you introduce me?”

”Of course!” He looked back at her, smiling. “She calls me ‘Baby Spider’, because we’re, you know, both arachnid-themed.”

”Please don’t tell me you call her ‘Momma Spider’ in return.”

”I will not dignify that question with a response...”

”Oh my god, you do!”

”Hey, when a former international-assassin-turned-secret-agent says that you can call her ‘Momma Spider’, you don’t just say no!”

Michelle gave him a conceding nod, though a laugh was fighting to escape her throat.  

”I can’t believe you still somehow stayed a dork after everything,” she said, and he shrugged.

”It’s a gift,” he replied.

Michelle smirked and turned away, focusing on the frosted trees around them and attempting to ignore the harsh bite in the air. She literally would look anywhere if that meant she didn't have to look at Peter. Making eye contact might provoke another conversation, and she found she needed a break from him. It was like looking at him was too much for her mind to handle. Just hearing his footsteps was disconcerting, because she had trained herself to think any footsteps besides her own was a threat. Plus, Michelle could barely handle the cheeriness that seemed to radiate off his body. She had expected nothing but a harsh, maybe even a scathing, personality from him, and what she had gotten so far was the exact opposite. It's like she hadn't prepared for anything else, but then again, why would she have had to? For the last three years, Peter Parker had been dead, and as far as she knew, he had died a cold, secretive jerk that refused to have more than one friend. How had she gotten it so wrong?

"You know, we don't have to walk," Peter then said, and she looked at him quizzically. Why was his face so red all of a sudden? "I can, uh, I can swing us, if you want."

She stifled a laugh, and then he looked at her wide his wide, puppy-like eyes. "Oh, you're serious?"

He shrugged. "I mean, I can't feel my feet, so I figured, maybe you'd want to get off yours, just for a little."

He was right, which was annoying. Her feet were ridiculously freezing, her heavy hiking boots providing little insulation. Being in such a close proximity to him probably wasn't the best idea, but so far, he had proved himself anything but a threat. As conflicted as she still was, she dismissively nodded her head. "Fine, loser, how do you wanna do this?"

Peter nervously went up to her and started to inwardly put pieces together. Was he thinking of the best way to carry her? Michelle didn't entirely care for the way his eyes studiously mapped out her body. He shuttered when he lifted his hand, and she watched him expectantly. He halted his movement and gave her a concerned look, as if looking for the go-ahead that this was okay, and she nodded affirmatively.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. She could feel his hand shaking against her back, and she brought her arms to rest around his shoulders. His face was as red as a rose, and he looked up at her again when she gave the back of his head a tug, as a way to make him focus. Why was his hair so soft? 

“Stop thinking about it,” Michelle ordered him, “This means nothing.”

”I wasn’t, uh, I wasn’t thinking it meant anything,” Peter blustered, and he sniffed roughly, holding her tighter against himself, “Why were you?”

”Oh, please, don’t flatter yourself,” she huffed, “Now swing, Bug Boy.”

”It's Bug _Man_ , actually,” he corrected her, and before she knew what was happening, she was hanging onto him for dear life as he swung them easily through the air. 

It was thrilling, flying through the trees with her hair flipping every which way. Peter had a sturdy hold on her, and while she didn’t question his strength, her legs came around his waist anyway, as if that would give her a sounder mind. It did, kind of, and he didn’t seem to notice her change of position. She figured this must not be first time he carried someone while swinging, because he did it with such ease that he must have had some practice before this particular instance.

Peter landed on a tree and came to a jostling stop, the tree swaying slightly. He lifted Michelle around and pressed her back against the trunk, her grip vice-like. Her legs were still wrapped tightly around him, arms lurching his shoulders with face buried fearfully into the nape of his neck. She didn’t release him from her clutches immediately, and even when he readjusted her so she was sitting up higher on his torso, just above his hips, she didn’t loosen her hold. 

“Hey, Michelle,” he said, using is free hand to gently shake her shoulder, “It’s okay. I’m just changing out my web fluid.”

”Whatever, loser,” she retorted, voice muffled from her face still in his neck, “I’d just rather not look down, if it’s all the same to you.”

His laugh, warm and soft, rumbled through his chest, and she willed herself to ignore it. As he changed his web fluid, she sneaked a peak over his shoulder and immediately regretted it. They were so high up. _So_ high up. If she fell from this height, death would be a certainty.

”Alright, you ready to go?” He asked her, and she nodded, clutching him tighter. He tightened his hold on her too, and then started swinging again.

Michelle had no idea how long they swung for. The pace wasn’t fast, but it wasn’t slow either. Peter seemed to know what would work for them and he never made her feel uneasy. In fact, she had never felt safer. She wasn’t sure why she felt that way, but she figured she’d find it out eventually. 

He eased them to the ground after a while, and as he stood up straight, Michelle didn’t release him. She stayed wrapped around him like a koala, her eyes tight shut. She barely registered they had stopped when he suddenly spoke.

”Um, Michelle?”

Her eyes flew open and she was off him in an instant. She readjusted her backpack and tossed her hair out of her eyes, acting as if nothing had just happened. Because nothing did. Duh. So what if she’s hung on to him a second too long? That was a fear reflex. Nothing more.

"Yeah, never doing that again." She shook her head sporadically. "Yeah, never again."

He grinned sympathetically at her. "Sorry, I'll try to be more careful next time." He pointed through the trees. "There’s a building over there.” Michelle followed his finger and focused, zeroing in a large, square building with an equally-large parking lot surrounding it.

”We shouldn’t-.” Michelle didn’t get to finish her sentence because Peter was walking briskly passed her. “Where are you going?”

”Resource check,” he called over his shoulder, not slowing his step, “Unlike you, I’m not afraid of every building I come across.”

"It’s not fear. It’s caution,” she countered, grudgingly following him, “And you’re gonna get us killed if you don’t start practicing some.”

"Right, of course." The remark was playful, but Michelle couldn't help but speculate if he was actually fed up with her. If he was, that would at least give her glimpse of what she had grown to so strongly dislike.

"Well, I buried you once already, and I won't be doing it again," Michelle grumbled. She said it quiet enough where an average person wouldn't hear her, but maybe Peter had. His head twitched ever so slightly, but didn't fully look back at her. She hoped he wouldn't ask. No matter what her preconceived notions were about him, that was still a sad day to remember. He had been the last one she had put to rest, and for some reason, it had been one of the toughest. It was finally burying the last bit of the life she knew.

As they walked, Michelle started giving Peter more credit on his capability. He was very aware, constantly looking around. His handheld repulsion thing was on and it seemed to be humming with some kind of strange energy. When they walked out into the parking lot, she felt more on edge than ever. She really didn't like being so out in the open. Anyone could see them. What if a group of Raiders were hiding in the trees? Peter, however, didn't appear as anxious, curiously peaking inside some of the few abandoned, rusted-over cars that were still there. There was even a school bus. Intrigued, Michelle studied the building itself. Hamilton High School? As if finding Peter wasn't enough, of course she had to go back to high school, even if it wasn't her own.

"What kind of resources do you think you'll find here?" she asked, trying not to sound as exasperated as she felt. "Pencil cases and notebooks?"

"I don't know, just whatever we can use," he answered with a shrug.

They went up to entrance and Michelle had her glock gripped tightly in her hand as he tested the door. He gave her a pensive look, and she reassured him that she wouldn't waste another bullet on him. The door wasn't locked, and when he pushed it open, it made a horrible squeaking sound that she swore could be heard for miles. Peter gave her an unsure smile, one of those cringe-filled ones that you made after you did something that obviously wasn't good, and he stepped aside to let her in first. She had half a mind to kick him in the shin as she walked past.

As expected, the entire building was completely deserted. The halls was ridiculously dirty, the locker rusted and falling about. The doors of every room had been ripped off, so were the desks and most of the shelves were bare. The hallways were winding but a little familiar. It was different from Midtown Tech, obviously, but it had its similarities. The cafeteria looked the same, for instance, save for the grimy floor, broken tables and cracked windows. Actually, she figured Midtown looked the exact same, maybe even worse. 

 _I wonder if there's a library_ , Michelle wondered. The shelves she had seen so far were mostly empty, nothing but ripped books and magazines left behind. Nothing that could be read, basically. She figured if there was one, it would be just as bare, but it couldn't hurt to look, could it?

"Hey, look," Peter then beckoned, pointing to the floor and trailing his finger further down the hallway. Michelle followed his point and eyed the floor. There was a trail of muddy pawprints leading away from the cafeteria. They looked dog-like, with four toes and a palm. Was the center pad of a dog's foot called a palm? Whatever the terminology, the pawprints themselves were rather large, and it was weird because they just appeared as if from nowhere. They just... started. There was no prints around the cafeteria at all. It was like it had materialized and started walking, and by the way the prints were spaced, whatever left them walked on two legs.

"Am I going to see a radioactive sasquatch?" Michelle asked in her usual deadpan tone, but when Peter laughed regardless, she continued, "Because that's like some for real Fallout 3 type shit."

"I thought you didn't play that?" he questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"I always watched the walkthroughs Ned sent me," she answered. It was true. She'd watch every single one, and she was _not_ prepared to fight a Deathclaw or a Brute.

Peter didn't say anymore, only nodded and walked away, following the pawprints down the hall. Michelle immediately called him out on it, saying whatever made them might still be around. She was almost begging him to not be a horror movie cliche.

"Oh, come on, it's probably just a dog, if anything at all!" Peter called back. "And I know that sounds like something someone in a horror movie would say but seriously, I mean it! Trust me!"

Michelle muttered under her breath that she was _definitely_ going to die because of him. She just hoped it'd be a quick death.

She followed after him rather begrudgingly. His pace was pretty brisk and she kept thinking that if her legs weren't so long, she'd be completely left behind. He seemed to have a destination in mind, or maybe he was looking for something. At least the hallway they were walking down was well lit, lined with windows, some broken, some not. It allowed the crisp Montana light to wash over the floor. They turned a corner and were met with the doors of the gymnasium. An old, torn purple banner lay across the floor at their feet. She tilted her head to see if she could make out the wording, but Peter was pushing through the doors and walking away. The Hamilton High Timberwolves. Suddenly realizing she was alone in the hallway, she slipped through the door before it closed on her and very nearly bumped into him. His hand flew to her upper arm, gripping it until she steadied herself. Her eyes flew up to meet his, and she held their eye contact for a lingering amount of time. One-by-one, Michelle peeled his fingers off her arm, and he let his hand drop to his side. He had some kind of unreadable expression in his face, his mouth slightly parted as he stared up at her. With the tiniest motion with his head, he gestured to the farthest side of the room. She followed, and it took her a second to process just exactly what she was seeing, her eyes squinting at the light in the gym.

It was a mural of the school's mascot, which was a wolf. However, there was black graffiti drawn on it, giving the wolf a funky mustache, dorky round glasses and a tophat, even going so far as to put a smile on its face. Who had done it, though? A survivor looking for a laugh? Raiders? Michelle stepped away from Peter's side, eyes traveling down to the spilled bucket of paint on the floor. It was bone-dry and must have been there for a while. It was then that she noticed black pawprints were all over the floor, tracking the paint across the hardwood. It was like they were in the creature's den, but there was no creature in sight.

And that made her even more nervous.

"Parker, maybe we should-." She froze when she saw him studying the ground. His repulsor hand was hovering over it, and a blue light scanned at one of the paw prints. She walked forward to better see just as he got a full scan of the print, and faced his palm to the sky. The pawprint showed above his hand in a neat little hologram. Different parts of it were targeted and zoomed in on, dissected in different ways until some kind of identification thing came up, reading off lists of information in words too small to see. He made an interested humming sound, and she didn't know whether to be scared or relieved.

"Well, whatever it is is long gone," he said, standing up, the hologram disappearing from his hand. She cocked her head, confused, and he went on, "You're not afraid of a pack of wolves, are you 'Chelle?"

"Who's 'Chelle?" Her head jerked slightly at the very sound of the foreign name. Red erupted across his face.

"You-You denied me 'MJ', so I had to, um, come up with something. Real quick," he stammered. He tried to hide his blush by stowing away his repulsor in his backpack.

"It's Michelle, actually," she huffed, echoing the tone he had with her when she called him "Bug Boy". She stuffed her hands into her pockets, feeling a chill. There was a broken skylight on the gym's ceiling and it blew snowflakes inside, cascading to the floor in flurries. She glared up at the sky for its cold rebuttal.

"Okay, okay," he conceded. She glanced back at him, and he was staring around with a small smile on his face. Her exhaled slowly, his breath coming out as steam. "Kind of reminds you of Midtown, right?" He looked back at her, his deep brown eyes glittering. She wanted to punch him. "Homecoming? Spying on the Senior Prom? Remember that?"

" _I_ remember that, but _you_ don't," she snapped, frowning, "You never stayed long enough."

She could recall those nights when he ended up vanishing. When Flash organized a massive prank for the seniors during their prom, Peter was supposed to bring the camera. But he never showed up, hence the Water Balloon Flood of 2017 would forever go undocumented. Then, of course, there was Homecoming, where Peter completely bailed two seconds after he got there. It was a super shitty thing to do, and Michelle felt the faintest hint of sympathy for the abandoned Liz Allen-Toomes. The two girls had hung out together for one night and one night only. Long story short, Michelle ended up being called 'MJ' that night.

This place definitely echoed Midtown Tech. In the years she'd been traveling, she had never come upon a school. One of her lifesaving philosophies was "the bigger the building, the more it should be avoided". Peter scratched the back of his neck.

"Yeah, I guess not," he agreed, "I'm a shit dancer anyway."

She doubted that. Spider-Man was nimble as all hell, and she'd be damned if this twerp wasn't the best natural dancer in the world.

"You know, I think that's the one thing I didn't like about being Spider-Man. Don't get me wrong, I loved it and it was awesome but, you know, it was kind of inconvenient," Peter said in a rush. "I just wish I didn't have to miss things, ya know. Disappoint people. It was always the hardest part of it all. Like, I remember when I was stopping a store robbery, and all I kept thinking about was how I left you and Ned at the library."

"That was just me that day," Michelle corrected. He pressed his lips together and nodded. She knew the day he was referring to all too well. She had ended up studying by herself for five hours, and he didn't so much as call. That was when she was sure he was purposefully avoiding her. Who didn't call when they weren't going to show up? Only someone who really didn't care.

"I'm sorry about that, by the way. I should have called," Peter apologized. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I never, uh, told you that."

"I don't want your apology," she snapped at him, but her words didn't contain the amount of bite she wanted.

He cleared his throat, nodding again. It was getting awkward. She could sense it, maybe even feel it. It was like the air around them changed. It made her fold her arms tighter across her chest. Whatever was happening here, she wanted no part of it. She needed to do something about this, and fast.

"But it's whatever, I didn't take it personally." _Yes, I did._ "You had a whole other life, and I understood that."

He didn't say anything, only stared at the floor. The tension wasn't breaking. It was like a steel blanket was wrapping itself around them and it was suffocating. Should she punch him? No, violence wasn't the answer here.

"You know, I never got to try." They locked eyes, and he clarified, "Dancing, that is. Never got to do it, 'cause I had to, um, take care of that whole Vulture situation. Remember that?"

He was getting at something. She could tell. She knew what it was too, she knew _exactly_ what it was. But for some weird reason, she wanted him to say it. It was fun watching him squirm internally. She was preparing to say no, preparing to shoot him down as aggressively as she could. Of course she was going to say no. There was no way in a thousand years that she would ever consider-.

"Would you-Would you wanna, uh, dance? W-With me?" He gestured to himself like he had to make sure that he was talking about _him,_ and not some other guy in the room.

"I don't think we're there yet," Michelle replied, tossing her bangs out of her face. For about the thirtieth time in the past minute, he nodded, and she seriously considered just holding his head in place. But that would involve touching and being too close and, unless they were swinging, such proximity wasn't necessary.

"Right." He knocked the heel of his palm against his forehead. "Duh. Of course. You hate me. You think I hate you. That whole thing is... a thing."

Ever the ramblin' man. She rocked back and forth on her feet. "So, should we go?"

"Yeah, we should probably head out," he actively agreed. He didn't nod to accentuate his agreement, which she appreciated. Together, they left the gym and the vandalized wolf behind, as well as whatever aura had settled over them. It took everything in her not to break into a run.

They left through the back door, walking through an overgrown football field. She could tell he was embarrassed, the blush not entirely gone from his face. As they reached the tree line, the sun showed through the leaves, casting its evening glow on the freshly fallen snow. They would need to find a place to camp soon. She didn't even think about staying at the school, and she was happy that Peter didn't suggest it. Raiders were attracted to bigger buildings, and sure none had showed up yet, but that didn't mean none ever would.

But being with Peter made her less scared of running into them. He was a superhero, after all. A superhero that could dodge bullets and lift ten tons. As much as she couldn't stand him currently, she found his presence to be almost... comforting, despite that.

Or maybe she just liked no longer being alone.


	6. Proximity Alert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments, and for bearing with me and my nonexistent updating schedule! And thanks for over 100 kudos! Super cool! Y'all are awesome!

Camping never interested Michelle when she was growing up. So why was she so naturally good at it?

Peter never interested her, either. So why couldn't she stop looking at him?

They were huddled under a bridge, a small fire between them. They had shared one of her cans of ravioli and had buried it soon after they were finished. Michelle hoped that would be enough to mask the smell from the wolves or other creatures nearby.

When night fell, so did the temperature. Snow blanketed the ground in a thin veil. Michelle could barely feel her fingers. Peter's shoulders were shaking, and his ears were scarlet red, his thick sweatshirt not doing much to keep him warm. The tunnel was the best they could do for shelter, under a long-forgotten railroad that hadn't been used in a long, long time. There was a bitter wind that cut straight to the bone. Michelle was sure her bones were turning to ice and if she moved, she'd shatter.

Deep in the dark, shadowy forest, a wolf’s howl sounded. It was long, drawn-out and vaguely melodic, and it wasn’t long after it ended that several different howls answered it, adding their own melodies.

“I’d suggest putting out the fire so we don’t die, but I feel like if we do, we’ll die anyway,” Michelle said. “What do you prefer? Wolf bite or frostbite?”

It was her best attempt at humor, the closest she had ever come to making a joke. She thought Peter might appreciate the lighter tone, but his face showed no indication that he was amused by it.

”I prefer silence,” he grumbled.

Whenever he was blunt with her, she couldn't really make herself take him seriously, though it was sort of surprising. The awkward, anxious boy who never made eye contact with her? Being anything but a stuttering mess? it was more weird than anything else, but hey, people grew up. Three years and a couple of nuclear bombs changed a person.

He might only be cold. Or he might be ornery from all the travel. Or his team abandoning him in the middle of nowhere. Or being with someone who, up until about ten seconds ago, hadn't felt an ounce of empathy toward him their whole trip.

He had every right to want silence.

 _He just needs to warm up,_ she wondered to herself.

She had an idea about how to help him with that, but she made quick work of decapitating the thought. She didn't want to be so near him, no matter how pitiful he looked. Closeness would only be utilized for swinging, and swinging only. As if it would help, she resorted to glaring at him, but he only stared intensely at the fire between them. He looked like he was in his own little world. She had never seen his eyes look so fiery. It was like he was keeping the fire going with simply the heat of his gaze.

"We shouldn't stay here," Michelle said offhandedly. She didn't expect him to acknowledge her words, looking so lost in his own head. She just knew that under this bridge wasn't a good place to make camp. It was open and vulnerable, and if a wolfpack _was_ roaming around the woods, where they were would definitely ensure them a midnight snack.

"I know," Peter grunted back. "We'll move in a minute."

"You know what else can move in a minute? Wolves," Michelle deadpanned. "I don't know about you, but I didn't survive this long just to become a chew toy."

"As soon as I get some feeling back in my body, we'll leave, okay?" He said, glancing toward her. He rubbed his hands together. "Just... hold on a second."

Michelle wasn't a patient person, by nature. Well, she was for certain things, like waiting in line to buy a book or waiting for Mr.Harrington to stop talking so she could leave. But as of the past few years, she had grown used to operating on her own time. She moved around when she wanted to, stayed where she felt safest, and went where she pleased. It was independence of the most interesting kind, although she had gained it under the most unfortunate of circumstances. If she could redo it, she would have just stayed with her grandparents and gone into the bunker with everyone else.

But no. Sentimental value had won out, and she lost everything.

Until the idiot sitting across from her bumbled back into her life, proclaiming that, in fact, she had not lost everything and that it was waiting for her back in New York. And that idiot was now cold, shivering like a leaf, his cheeks rosy and his lips pressed together. She huffed, resurrecting her earlier thought strictly out of necessity. She wasn't going to waste time waiting for him when she wanted to leave now. It was selfish, through and through. She didn't want to die and that was it. No other reason.

Michelle got up and walked over to him. She made sure to sigh as irritably as possible so he knew how much this was inconveniencing her. She promptly sat down next to him and draped one arm over his shoulders. He was looking at her with a mixed expression of surprise and curiosity. When she tried to pull him closer for optimal body heat distribution, he stiffened up like drying concrete.

"What are- what are you, uh, doing?" Peter asked, voice a little shrill. Was he nervous, or just cold? Well, he only stammered like that when he was nervous, but why would he be? She was only trying to help him.

"I'm speeding this up," she answered. She felt him relax, the tenseness of his shoulders giving way as he slowly leaned into her. She rubbed a hand up and down one of his arms, ignoring the muscle there as she focused on creating friction. Not liking the weird, awkward silence that had fallen between them, she said, "I'm not gonna die 'cause you're a little chilly. This is me simply trying not to die."

"Right," he agreed with a tiny nod. "Makes sense."

"Don't you have a heater in your suit?"

"Yeah, but I'm not exactly wearing it right now." He fisted his hands into the crooks of his elbows. God, he felt so small all balled up next to her. "Come to think of it, I can't actually remember the last time I wore that thing. Has to have been a few years."

"You don't walk around with it in your backpack anymore?" she asked, and he chuckled against her. A strand of curly hair tickled her nose as his head bobbed from his laughter, and she blew it out of the way before it could make her sneeze. How long had she been rubbing his arm? He had to be at least semi-warm by this time, right?

 _Stop rubbing his arm, then_.

"Do you still walk around with four different books in your backpack?" he countered, and she scoffed.

"No," she mumbled. She wasn't exactly lying. She was only carrying two right now.

"Yeah, totally." he clearly didn't sound convinced. Annoyed, she reached up and flicked his ear. It was an old callback to what she used to do in order to make him pay attention when he would zone out during their study sessions. You know, the ones he would actually show up to. Even when he did show up though, he was never all there. Like, his mind was still swinging around Manhattan while his body labored over calculus.

He seemed to remember the old trick, and he lowered his head in an effort to get away from her hand. His shoulders were shaking with laughter instead of the cold, so that was a good sign. She mischievously reached for his ear again and he covered his head with his arms.

"No, come on!" Peter whined, and he fell across her lap. "Please, man, come on! Be cool!" He turned over on his back and flailed his hands, trying to deflect her probing ones. "Literally the one thing about you I didn't miss!"

He finally caught her hands in his, and they stilled. Their fingers were still icy cold and their faces entirely too close. Her hair was draped over one shoulder and practically reaching down to gentle brush the side of his face. The light of the dying fire reflected of his chocolate brown eyes, and she could just barely make out the very faint freckles that dusted his cheeks. Had they always been there? Why had she never noticed them? Probably because they've never been this close before.

And that was the problem. They were close. They were _too_ close. Mental alarms started to go off in her head, as well as a voice that was screaming, "Alert! Proximity Alert! Code Red!"

They were entirely too close, and worse yet, _lingering_ , and she felt herself blink back into reality. If she could have used a metaphor to describe just how she felt, it was that someone had just picked her up out of Antarctica and proceeded to chuck her straight into the Sahara Desert. 

Basically, if they both weren't warm before, they definitely were now. Her face felt like into was on fire, and she saw the blush spreading on Peter's own face. This wasn't because of what they were doing to try and keep warm or anything, but-wait, maybe that was why.

She was overthinking this.

The one thing she didn't overthink was the last thing he said. That could be saved for later, she reasoned, because right now, they just needed to move.

"I think you're warm enough now." Michelle hated how soft her voice sounded. To rectify that, she cleared her throat and shoved him hard off her lap. He hit the ground with a grunt, disturbing the leaves strewn there, and she got to her feet. "Get up, Parker. I'm not dying because of you."

He looked up at her, eyes wide. Did he have to look so stunned? If anything, he should be relieved. She could've kicked him instead, and honestly she was thinking about doing it because of how long he was taking to find his feet.

But he did eventually, and Michelle stomped out the fire with her boot. She pulled her backpack over her shoulders as he did the same, and started out of the tunnel before he had even gotten the second strap over his arm. Her feet crunching on the snow that barely reached passed her ankle, she scaled the incline. Michelle went up all the way up to the rundown railroad and looked both ways down the rusted train tracks. Glock in hand in case they were any wolves lurking around, logic told her to wait for Peter for safety reasons. She was alone and vulnerable now because of the fifteen feet of space she had put between herself and him. But he was a quick little bastard, and he webbed up the hill until he stood beside her again.

”Was that really necessary?” She asked, one eyebrow raised.

”I was only catching up,” he argued.

”Yeah, well, you could’ve walked like a normal person,” she shot back. Was she suddenly being overly blunt with him? It felt like she was.

Peter didn't say anything back, but he did give her a weird look she didn't quite understand. Sometimes, he could be so hard to read. He either had one emotion on his face or a hundred. There was no in-between. And he was currently wearing one of his I-can't-focus-on-one-emotion-so-I'm-going-to-have-all-of-them faces. She started walking down the train tracks just so she didn't have to look at him anymore.

"Uh, Michelle?" She stopped and glanced ever so slightly over her shoulder at him. He had his thumb pointed in the opposite direction. "It's actually this way."

She stormed by him, muttering, "I knew that."

They walked in silence down the tracks, the half moon acting as their flashlight. She reasoned that they had to be in Idaho by now. Maybe another couple hundred miles until they reached the Montana border. The mountains in the distance were capped with white, and with the stars glittering overhead, Michelle would have made the beautiful scene the screensaver on her laptop. That is, if she still had one. But she could barely focus on the sight before her because of Peter. She could just feel his eyes on her. She wanted to throw a rock at him just to divert his attention. Maybe even fire off a warning shot with her gun. All just because she wanted him to stop  _looking at her_. 

"Michelle," Peter then said after twenty minutes of walking and no talking. She ignored his soft call at first, and he repeated more firmly, " _Michelle_."

"If you're cold, deal with it," she snapped. "We're not-."

She never got to finish her sentence, for he grabbed her arm and forcibly dragged her into the bushes. She fought him the whole time and when she started to shout at him, he put a hand over her mouth. He went between shushing and begging her to be quiet as he picked her up with one arm and lifted them into the air. She instinctively clung to him as he swung them into a tree, catching the trunk just in time so he didn't crush her against the wood.

"Hold on," he ordered, not that she had much of a choice. He climbed like the tree with seemingly zero effort until he deemed that they were high enough. Retaining her previous fear of being swung around, Michelle kept her face buried in the crook of his neck. Her gun was still gripped in her hand, and she wondered if she would have to finally use it on something other than Peter.

"Why?" was all she could bring herself to ask, her one-word question muffled by his gray sweatshirt.

"Stalkers," was his one-word reply, and she immediately understood what he meant. They were being followed.

There was the sound of feet running through snow and Michelle made herself peek over his shoulder toward the ground. Beneath them were about six people, clothed in black and wielding rifles. They flicked flashlights on and were pointing them beyond the trees. Luckily, Peter had gotten them high enough so the flashlights couldn't reach their hiding place. After a few prolonged minutes of searching, the group starting talking among themselves.

"Dammit, I told you we waited too long," one of them said, and they walked directly under their tree. Michelle found herself holding Peter even tighter than before.

"Waited too long? It wouldn't even have mattered!" Another retorted irritably. "Did you see how fast that guy moved?"

"Their footprints disappear by the tracks, so we should double back," a third voice suggested. "We might have gone by them."

There were mumbles of agreement as they started to shuffle away, and Michelle almost breathed a sigh of relief, until a loud howl flowed through the air. It was the same melodic one she heard earlier, and just like before, several others followed in harmony. The people on the ground stopped walking and looked around with their flashlights until one of them angrily told the others to turn them off.

"You don’t think-," one of them began before getting shushed.

The howls came again, much closer this time, and Michelle picked up the sounds of frantic, thudding footsteps drawing closer to their position. Trying to see what was coming was pointless because of the dark, but it wouldn't have mattered, for the noises they made were enough to tip her off. There were snarls and barks, and suddenly the group of stalkers had all taken off in a run in the other direction. A swarm of wolves flooded beneath their tree in pursuit, crushing the snow under their paws, and the air became filled the peoples' screams as well the wolves' growls as they were torn apart by both tooth and claw. Peter and Michelle were forced to listen to every sound of their gruesome deaths, and it must have been a full twenty minutes later when they finally died down. 

As if the universe was trying to deliver a knock-out punch to her nerves, heavy, thumping footsteps approached their tree from the direction the wolves had come. It was heavier than both a wolf and a person's, and she fought the curiosity telling her to peer over Peter's shoulder once more. But Michelle took a deep breath and finally cast a look downward.

Only to immediately regret that action roughly two seconds later.

Walking beneath them was a figure of inordinate size. It walked upright like a human, but didn't look at all like one. From her position with Peter in the tree, she couldn't make out any specific details about what it looked like, only that it was black and colossal in size and height. Its arms were long but seemed powerful as it trudged away from them, shoulders broad, and when it started to run, it took off on all fours.

"Deathclaw," Michelle whispered, burying her face into Peter's neck to better mask her words.

"Maybe it's the mod version where you can make it your companion," he whispered back, practically speaking into her hair. Now that was a joke she almost laughed at, but with that thing still around, she forced herself not to.

She wasn't entirely sure how long they stayed in the tree. It was much longer than twenty minutes, and she was pretty sure that when they decided to move, they wouldn't be able to. There was a good chance that they were now officially frozen to the wood. But when Peter voiced that they could probably move, she held onto him as he descended the tree. When he got to the ground, Michelle hopped off him. As she stretched her cramped limbs, she observed the snow that had been beaten down by numerous paws and feet. It was a chilling sight (no pun intended) and probably one of the more scarier encounters she had ever had in her travels.

"Well," Peter prompted, hands on his hips, "we probably shouldn't hang around. That Deathclaw might still be around."

"You don't think that's what it was, do you?" She asked seriously, and he broke out in a laugh.

"Of course not, Michelle!" He said through his laughter. He then added matter-of-factly, "Deathclaws aren't actually real, you know."

She smacked him hard on the shoulder. "Let's just go before I leave you to that thing, whatever it was."

And so they started off again, Michelle tucking her gun into her backpack. The earlier surge of adrenaline had been enough to kick her growing drowsiness to the curb, and judged that she could keep walking well until dawn. Peter probably wouldn't have much trouble with that because he was, well, Peter. Super stamina and all that. He could go all night if he wanted to.

Michelle cursed her brain for allowing that last thought, and further cursed it for connecting it to _that_. She could've gagged, she was so grossed out. Would punching him make her feel better? Most likely not. She reasoned with herself that she really shouldn't be so loose with her fists. She had almost punched him back in the school just because of the tension, for christ's sake. 

They did end up walking until dawn, though. Well, it was close to dawn when Peter finally offered to swing them again. After a lot of mental debate and a lot more walking, Michelle agreed. She couldn't ignore the weariness in her legs any longer, no matter how much she hated being swung. She took her usual position with her legs and arms wrapped around him, and he launched them into the air. He kept up a steady, even pace until the sun had risen above the distant mountaintops, finally landing when they came to a wide open valley with a crisp blanket of snow covering it. Michelle was so tired that she didn't immediately let go of him upon landing. The valley was as beautiful a scene as ever, wonderfully picturesque, but what made it even better was the log cabin lying on the other side of it. When she saw it, she could've cried. Then again, tears might freeze her eyes shut.

"Thank god," Peter breathed out. When Michelle still didn't let go, he maneuvered her so he was giving her a piggyback ride, arms under her legs and her arms around his neck, head resting on his left shoulder. He carried her all the way across the entire expanse of the valley, continuing to do so as he looked through the windows of the cabin. The glass was thankfully still intact, and when he deemed it safe, he kicked in the door.

When he walked inside, Michelle couldn't bring herself to open her eyes. Her eyelids were so heavy that she reckoned she wouldn't be able to open them even if that Deathclaw thing appeared again. She listened as Peter closed the door of the cabin and walked around. She felt herself being lowered and she slid off his back onto something soft. He removed her backpack and laid her down on her side on what felt like a couch. Michelle sank into the cushions, body so exhausted that she didn’t even question why they weren't rotted away. Even if they were, she wouldn't have cared. It was just so damn comfy.

"What a night," Peter huffed, and he laid down on the floor next to her with a solid thump.

What a night, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. I have a terrible habit of accidentally posting chapters ‘cause my fingers will slip when typing on mobile. So, if you get a notification and nothing’s there, that’s why. Hope nobody noticed that that’s what I did here, (when I posted 7 instead of 6) and thanks for dealing with me :)


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